


The Doors of Perception

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Blacksand - Freeform, F/M, Frostbite, Haight-Ashbury, LSD, Love at First Sight, M/M, Pitch takes an acid trip, QUICKSAND, Recreational Drug Use, Santa made the acid, The Sixties, The sixties were problematic okay, What the hell am I doing?, rainbow snowcone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-11-27 02:17:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the spring of 1967. Sandy is twenty years old, and he would be a sophomore at Berkeley if he was still attending classes. Instead, he is living in an old house in the Haight-Ashbury. He likes it there. He’s found something he’s good at, that people love him for. Sandy is the best trip guide in San Francisco, and everyone who’s turned on knows it.</p>
<p>P.S. This is probably not as M as I would be hoping for if I was reading. But given the trifecta of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I thought it would be better to stick an M on it. Later chapters might make the M more legitimate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Surrealistic Pillow

**Author's Note:**

> Turned on=part of the hippie/LSD subculture
> 
> Millbrook= Timothy Leary's estate in New York 
> 
> Electric=having to do with/containing LSD (e.g. "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)
> 
> LSD and homosexuality: "Until 1973, the psychiatric profession classified homosexuality as a form of mental illness. Psychiatrists of the 1950s and 1960s who were experimenting with LSD therapy reported some success in changing the attitude and behaviors of many patients who had been diagnosed with this supposed illness. In many cases, these psychiatrists emphasized a goal of bringing their patients around to 'normal' heterosexuality", yet some "psychiatrists recognized that LSD therapy helped some patients resolve the guilt and uncertainties regarding their homosexual desires". Also, "Leary...did claim that LSD had 'cured' Allen Ginsberg" (80).---Glausser, Wayne. Cultural Encyclopedia of LSD. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011.

_It is the spring of 1967. Sandy is twenty years old, and he would be a sophomore at Berkeley if he was still attending classes. Instead, he is living in an old house in the Haight-Ashbury. He likes it there. He’s found something he’s good at, that people love him for. Sandy is the best trip guide in San Francisco, and everyone who’s turned on knows it._

 

            A warm March breeze ruffles the brilliant rainbow of hand-dyed sari fabrics that cover the walls of Sandy’s bedroom and hang from the ceiling to surround the mattress that lies directly on the floor. The sun creeps through a gap in the cloth and catches some of the tiny mirrors sewn into the hangings, causing pinpoints of light to dance across Sandy’s sleepy eyes and the barely-covered body of the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen, much less thought would ever be in his bed.

            He slowly props himself up on an elbow, wanting to get a better view of Kozzy like this. Peaceful. Glittering. His eyes trace him, starting with the disheveled black hair, still short enough that you can tell he hasn’t been here long, moving along to touch upon the closed eyes, so unusual when they’re open—mostly gray with a thin ring of light brown around the pupil, along the nose that is the very definition of aquiline, the high cheekbones, the thin lips, the jawline you could cut yourself on, the long neck, the flat, hard chest, those stupidly defined—and powerful! Sandy smiles to think—abs…he loses his train of thought as he notices Kozzy’s opened his eyes and is looking at him, smiling a little.

            “So it wasn’t a dream,” he says, reaching up to run his fingers through Sandy’s long blond hair. “They said you could get anyone to take a good trip, and I guess they were right.”

 

***

 

            A couple months ago, rumors had started going around about a new rich kid who had run away to the Haight-Ashbury. He was from old east coast money, they said. Said his last name was Black, but he slipped up once after a few bong hits and turned out it was really Pitchiner. Everyone knew what that meant. Politics. Media conglomerates. Real estate. The people that made The System. So wasn’t it sort of fair, you know, that he just didn’t seem to fit in? The guy didn’t even own a pair of jeans! Black wool pants, black turtleneck, did he think they were all still beatniks?

 

            Still, it wasn’t as though no one would let him stay with them. They’d share their space, their food, their acid. Then again, the first time they had done that, it had turned out to be an utter disaster. Pitchiner had freaked out in a major way (“I’m not me anymore! Don’t let me let the black shadows out!”), which had caused everyone else to freak out, and the house he was staying at had used up all the thorazine they had thought they would need for the entire year in order to calm everyone down.

 

            This doesn’t deter him, however, from trying again. And again. And again. Eventually someone tells him to go see Sandy if he’s going to be so pigheaded about becoming a psychonaut when it doesn’t even make him feel good, and eventually someone tells Sandy about a guy even he might not even be able to bring to enlightenment.

           

            And then, yesterday afternoon, Kosmotis Pitchiner had knocked on the door of the house where he had been told to find Sandy. Tooth had answered the door—Sandy and North had been in the basement “kitchen” making blotters, and Iceman and Bunny were out—somewhere—probably looking for runaways that had no place to stay. There were usually a few that ended up on the couches.

            “Sandy!” Tooth had called. “It’s that rich kid who always freaks out! Should I let him in?”

            Sandy had rushed up the stairs to be greeted with a vision of a tall drink of water all in black, standing uncomfortably on the porch and looking warily at Tooth, who had apparently come to the door in the middle of trying on her newest fashion project, which was mostly composed of feathers.

            “Hi,” he said to the young man at the door, trying not to stare. “I’m Sandy. Come on in.”

            “Oh! Thank you. But shouldn’t I introduce myself first? That is—I’m Kosmotis Black—I mean—I guess most people know that’s not my real name—er—”

            Sandy smiled up at him, taking his proffered hand. All this and a British accent? Okay, so he probably wasn’t for him, but maybe Tooth—if she could stop mooning about for Iceman for two seconds—“What do you want to be called?”, he asked, just as Tooth interjected:

            “For the love of! A British accent? What, did they give you tea in your baby bottle?”

            “Um, well, I did spend most of my formative years in England, and I attended public school there until just recently…”

            Tooth rolled her eyes. “Don’t let the terminology fool you, Sandy. Public schools are the ones over there that the public aren’t allowed to go to.”

            “That’s not quite the case—”

            “Anyway, have fun dealing with the least radical person under thirty I’ve seen in my life,” Tooth said, taking her feathers and moving back to the room she used as a workshop.

            Pitchiner blinked as he watched her go. “Is she _always_ like that?”

            Sandy shook his head. “She’s not a big fan of strangers. Sometimes the people who come to see me turn out to be real assholes and she likes that even less.”

            “Well I don’t want to be an asshole. So…I hope that counts for something.” He smiled at Sandy as if he wasn’t used to doing so and Sandy felt his heart skip a beat.

            “Sure it does.” He smiled back. “Would you like to meet North? He’s the only other person here right now. He makes the moonbloom blotter.”

            “I didn’t know he lived here in San Francisco,” said Pitchiner, following Sandy down the stairs.

            “Not many people do.”

 

            North, a bear of a Russian with arms covered in tattoos, was about forty and therefore quite old for the Haight-Ashbury, but even those who claimed to not trust anyone over thirty found themselves liking him as soon as they met him—even without knowing that he was in charge of distributing the purest acid available within a hundred miles. He had been a chemist back in the USSR, and that was as much as anyone knew about him before he arrived in California. He greeted Pitchiner with a bone-crushing hug and heavy slap on the back. “So, you are boy who has been bad tripping for two months? You come to right place today! My product better than Owsley’s, Sandy is best guide. The doors of perception shall be opened!”

            “Th-Thanks,” said Pitchiner, trying to regain his breath and balance. “I know it probably seems strange that I’ve been so determined to do this, but I’ve heard that acid can—that it will help me be—”

            Sandy placed his hand on his arm. “If you don’t want to talk about it now, that’s okay. You don’t need a reason, you know. Sometimes you can do things for their own sake.”

            Pitchiner nodded.

            “Now,” Sandy said, “What do you want to be called? You never did answer that.”

            Pitchiner looked surprised that someone was actually asking for his preference on this. “I suppose,” he said, “that I’d like to be called Kozzy. But no one’s ever called me that before. Kosmotis would be fine too. Just—something that isn’t Pitchiner.”

            “Kozzy, then.” Sandy smiled warmly at him. Was he imagining a bit of a blush on Kozzy’s cheeks? He must be.

            Just then, the upstairs door slammed open, followed by the sound of several voices all talking at once.

            “Aha!” North began to clean up the lab. “Must be Iceman and Bunny. Now we start cooking dinner. Kozzy, you help too.”

 

            The contrast between the basement kitchen and the upstairs kitchen could not be more stark. While North kept the lab as clean as if he was expecting to have to build a satellite or perform surgery down there on short notice, he allowed the upstairs kitchen to exist in a state of perpetual chaos. Tonight, the ordinary disorder caused by North directing Tooth, Bunny, Iceman, and Sandy in increasingly broken English was increased tenfold by the presence of Kozzy and two young runaways that Iceman and Bunny had brought back with them, Jamie and Sophie.

            “Are we seriously going to let those kids stay here?” Tooth whispered to North in a spare moment. “The girl can’t be more than fifteen.”

            “That is why they stay tonight. You know safer place?”

            “According to their parents, who are no doubt looking for them, this is probably the least safe place they could imagine! What about the cops?”

            “American police…” North waved his hand dismissively. “Hey there! Jamie, Sophie, where have you come from?”

            “We hitchhiked all the way from Pennsylvania!” Sophie answered, laughing.

            Tooth groaned. “See!” said North, “Is very far away. Not to worry.”

 

            “So Kozzy, is it?” began Bunny, a tall, muscular Australian who wore his brown hair in long pigtails that started at the nape of his neck, “that what they called you at Eton or whatever poncy place you were at?”

            “No,” Kozzy replied softly. “There, they called me Pitch.”

            “Huh. You know, I’ve heard stories about those places. Got a bit of a Greek system between the older and younger boys, eh? Got any interesting insights on future members of the house of lords?”

            Sandy noticed that Kozzy had started to clench his teeth and that the knuckles of the hand holding the knife he was using to chop onions for pelmeni filling had gone white.

            “No,” he said again. “Not as such.”

            “Whoa mate, no need to get so on edge. Not like I care. The utopia Sandy and North are trying to create, no one’ll care about things like that.”

            “‘Things like that’” Kozzy replied, voice even lower, “do not apply to me.”

            _Damn_ , thought Sandy. It was a long shot anyway.

 

            When they were all finally settled down around the table for dinner, North began to ask the newcomers more questions as he passed around tiny glasses full of vodka that Tooth made sure never actually made it to Jamie or Sophie.

            “So, Kozzy, what brings you all the way to California? You are from east coast, yes? Could have gone to Millbrook.”

            “I think they’re having some problems. Again, though, it’s hard to know for sure. I just wanted…I wanted to get away. I’m from Massachusetts—I mean, I spent holidays there. I was supposed to go to Harvard…”

            “And you decided to go to Berkeley instead—only you’re not really going there any more.” This interruption was from Iceman.

            “How do you know?”

            “Kozzy, I was in your English class this past fall. Admittedly I stopped going a lot sooner than you did—I went to like a week of classes. And they didn’t call me Iceman on the roll call—Jack Frost ring a bell? Weird name I know.”

            Kozzy laughed shortly. “You know, I do remember you now. You were supposed to be my partner for the collaborative report at the end of the semester. I had to do it alone.”

            “Oh, right. No hard feelings though? I mean—school. It’s all a game.”

            “Hmmm. I did get an A.”

            “What was your project about?” asked Sandy.

            Pitch looked a bit embarrassed. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

            “No, I really want to know.”

            “It was about that movie— _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ —I wrote about how it could be read as an expression of both left- and right-wing political fears. A freshman project, you know, but I mean, technically I am still a freshman.”

            “Huh! Glad I dropped out,” exclaimed Iceman, taking more pelmeni.

            “That sounds really interesting,” said Sandy, handing another tiny glass to Kozzy.

            North smiled. “So Kozzy is scholar. You know, Kozzy, Sandy was also at Berkeley until not too long ago.”

            “Really? What were you studying?”

            “Art—sculpture, particularly, though I played with most media. But I don’t need the university to make art. And then I found something I was good at. Guiding trips.”

            “Are we all going to trip tonight?” Jamie piped up.

            “No.” Tooth’s voice was firm. “Sandy’s going to have his hands full with Kozzy. Guy’s got a lot of bad trips under his belt. Sandy can’t also deal with two first-timers.”

            “Maybe tomorrow,” said Iceman. “We’ll just chill tonight. You’ll love Tooth on pot. She’ll definitely braid your hair, Soph.”

            Sophie laughed and Tooth sighed. “Yeah, I probably will.”

 

            After cleaning up from dinner—the addition of Jamie, Sophie, and Kozzy leading to more dishes being done and put away than usual—North gave Sandy two blotter doses of moonbloom. “Good luck my friend,” he said, pressing his massive hands into Kozzy’s shoulders. “And do not worry. Sandy is best.”

            Kozzy glanced over at Sandy, who smiled at him reassuringly. “We have the sedatives if you need them. Anyway, it’ll probably be kind of noisy downstairs for a while—”

            “Too right mate,” said Bunny. “When Jack and I were out we bought the new Jefferson Airplane album. I was just going to put it on.”

            “You see? So if you don’t mind, I was thinking we would go up to my room. It’ll just be us. From what I’ve heard your other trips were in large groups. Depending on what’s going on in your head, that might make it difficult to relax…”

            Kozzy nodded. “Show me the way, Sandy.”

           

            In Sandy’s room, Kozzy ran his hands over the many colorful wall hangings. “I’d almost think I’d already taken the acid.”

            “Tooth made them for me.”

            “All of them?” Kozzy looked at him in surprise.

            Sandy nodded. “She’s really very generous and kind once she counts you as part of her tribe. I’m sorry about earlier today. Especially since you don’t seem…too attached to your past. None of us can help our backgrounds. Also, I think she thinks I don’t need the aggravation of dealing with your issues.”

            “You don’t.” Kozzy smiled wryly at him. “I’m going to have to find some way to repay you for helping me.”

            _Oh, you’re going to kill me by smiling._ “Sit down on one of those pillows. We’re going to talk a little before I give you the tab. I won’t take any tonight. I’ll just be here to help you if you need anything.”

            Kozzy settled down. He looked like some kind of bird, perched, ready to take flight, instead of relaxed. “What are we going to talk about?”

            “Anything you want,” Sandy says. He thinks of putting on a record, but Jefferson Airplane echoes faintly up through the floor and he doesn’t want to have contrasting music. “Maybe you could talk about yourself, your life. Anything that’s on your mind. Anything that might be blocking you. Little things. Big things.” He’s pitched his voice into the soothing tone that Tooth has told him could be sold as a better anxiety cure than all the pills prescribed in America.

            “All my life, I’ve been told exactly what I needed to do,” Kozzy begins. “Which classes, which sports, which friends. Going to Berkeley was my first big deviation from what my parents wanted. But it was still a college. I could still fix it by going to an Ivy League school for a later degree.

            “I’ve been terrified since I came to California. Like I’m about to ruin my life with every decision I make. Sometimes I just want to go back to Massachusetts, admit that my parents know best and let go. Let them make me into the perfect Pitchiner. It would be so easy. They want me to have everything they have. Money. Power. I can look the part. It would be so easy. It seems easy for other people.”

            “I could have everything everyone wants. I don’t think I want it. I don’t know how to explain this. My problems probably don’t sound real.

            “I want to be myself. I don’t know if I even have a self to be. There have only been two times in my life where I felt there was. Once, a drawing class I took when I was 12 or 13. I was terrible at it. I mean, I got terrible grades. I wasn’t allowed to take art after that.”

            Sandy’s expression turned shocked. “I would have run away then.”

            Kozzy smiled with closed lips. “Art isn’t required for a Pitchiner. We are patrons, not artists. Who knows, Sandy, even if I had followed their wishes, maybe we would have met that way.”

            With a smile, Sandy shook his head. “I’m glad I met you this way.” It was stupid, really, this love at first sight thing. But Pitch was different from the others. Unattainable, of course, but if he was, he would still be different. Sandy imagined Tooth’s reaction to hearing him say that. She’d probably shriek in frustration. She’d say: “No more asshole pretty boys Sandy you love them and they use you and they stay with you for a night because they think you’re safe you won’t tell anyone and they think you should be grateful and you always cry when they leave and I hate them for it.” But Tooth’s not here right now and Kozzy is talking in that delicious accent of his again.

            “The only other thing that made me feel like I wasn’t just a shell filled with all the things supposedly making a perfect scion was riding. Here comes more jackass rich kid stuff. My family owns several racehorses, and shares in others. One summer we went to visit the stables and I was simply…enchanted. Yes, to a small child they were a little frightening, but that didn’t stop me from reaching up to pat their noses, learning how to offer them bits of carrot. I begged to learn to ride. Thank goodness that’s something rich kids have done for ages.

            “I’m pretty good with horses, I think. They have a lot fewer criteria for judging you than people. And sometimes the judgments they make can surprise you. Soon after that failure of an art class, my parents bought me my own horse. So I guess they have some human feeling. He’s a gelding, named Gringolet.” He laughed softly. “He’s beautiful. A dapple gray. Half-wild—well, really poorly trained—when they bought him, half-wild when I came back from school that year. They had bought him for his looks, assuming they could hire the best trainer and it would all work out. Well, they did hire the best trainer, but Grin was having none of it. After our introduction—and a few days—he was like putty in my hands. And liable to bite anyone else! In the summers I’d go riding with him almost every day. He’s what I miss about Massachusetts. Everything else can go hang.”

            “Your face lights up when you talk about horses,” Sandy tells him. He doesn’t think Kozzy will think it’s flirting—doesn’t think that he would react to flirting well, based on the incident in the kitchen this evening—but it’s true, and it’s beautiful, so he says it.

            “My parents say it’s vulgar. I was supposed to have started building a stable, not become friends with Grin.

            “Ah, what is all this though? Is this the kind of thing you were looking for me to say?”

            Privately, Sandy thinks that there’s a lot more Kozzy needs to deal with, but he’s no psychiatrist. He’s just a trip guide with a crush. “You’ve told me some things that might help me know what you’re afraid of, if the trip starts to go bad. Before we start, I want to let you know that your worries about knowing yourself might have been a problem before. Acid wants you to be open to ego-death. You have to be able to let go of the ‘I’. Of everything you think you are, and everything you think you should be. There might be a new Kozzy on the other side, but you’ve got to accept you don’t know that Kozzy yet.”

            He looked so serious! “I’m hoping to be a different person after this.” Kozzy shifted uncomfortably on the pillow. “Can I tell you something?”

            Sandy nodded.

            “And you won’t tell anyone else?”

            “I promise,” says Sandy. He’s kept a lot of secrets over the past two years.

            “I—I want to do this…not just to free my mind but because…” his voice becomes almost inaudible, “Leary said it cured Ginsberg.”

            Sandy is careful to keep his expression blank. Yes, he had read that interview as well. He also knew that it was total and complete bullshit. Mostly because there was nothing to cure. But what’s he supposed to tell Kozzy? Also, he’s got to be careful not to look happy about this, because Kozzy sure isn’t but if he would just accept it…(“A _closeted_ asshole pretty boy?!” he hears Tooth yelling at him.) “Leary is an expert on acid,” Sandy says. “But I can’t say for sure what exactly the effects will be for you. I’m here to make sure they’re positive. You’re going to be safe with me. All right?”

            Kozzy nods. “Your voice is really calming.”

            “Thank you. Now, Kozzy, do you feel calm? Relaxed? Are you prepared to accept yourself as part of the unity of all beings?”

            “Yes, yes, and I’ll try.” He looked determined.

            Sandy laughs a little. “Don’t try too hard. Whatever happens will happen, and it will be all right. If you’re ready, I can give you the blotter now. If not, we can wait more. Talk more.”

            “No, no.” Kozzy takes a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

            “All right.” Sandy takes one of the moonbloom blotters and carefully tears it into quarters. “I’m going to give you a smaller dose than you’ve probably been given before. You don’t need to go all the way to the edge of the galaxy tonight. Just the moon.” He hands him the treated paper.

            Kozzy places the paper on his tongue. “How long does it take to kick in?”

            “Probably about half an hour. And while we’re waiting, I just want you to relax. If there’s anything I can do to help you do that, just tell me.”

            “Hmmm.” Kozzy lies down on the pillow so that his head hangs down over one side and his legs are sprawled out on the floor in front of Sandy. They go on forever. _This is not going to be one of my more professional evenings_ , he thinks, searching for something to say that’s not “maybe you’d find the bed more comfortable”.

            “Sandy,” Kozzy says, a bit hesitantly, “I don’t know what you guys are like in your house and I know maybe you’d think this is weird now that you know…er…what I am but…”

            “Anything, just ask. I’m here for you.” _And also you can have my body_. Sandy thinks he’s managed to keep that statement free from the untoward implications that might show up in his tone, because he doesn’t make mistakes like that with his voice. It’s something he’s proud of. Now, though, he wishes he was worse at it.

            “Well, when I was really little…” _fuck, this is going to go nowhere_ , thinks Sandy. “One of the things I remember was one of my nannies—yeah, more rich kid bullshit—well, she would run her fingers through my hair to help me fall asleep after I had nightmares. And I’ve seen people play with each other’s hair a lot since I’ve been here so maybe…?”

            “Of course.” Sandy moves a pillow over by Kozzy’s head and—let no one say he was manipulating the situation!—gets a smaller pillow to place in his lap, where Kozzy can rest his head. He begins to run his fingers through Kozzy’s black hair. It’s so soft, and Sandy imagines what it would be like if he let it grow out, down to his waist and he would just let it fall like silk through his fingers and bury his face in it—he’s zones out for a bit—Kozzy gives a little contented sigh, and Sandy notices his eyelids are drooping.

            “Kozzy, I know you want to sleep now, but stay awake for me? I can’t keep you safe if you go away into dreamland.”

            Kozzy opens his eyes and looks up at Sandy, and this is when Sandy begins to notice their unusual coloring and Kozzy is smiling again and this universe just likes to tease him, doesn’t it?

            “I think you could. You look like you could.”

            “Me? I’ve been most favorably compared to a cherub.”

            “‘Every angel is terrifying’. That’s Rilke. There was more that I liked…if I can remember…‘beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,/and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.’”

            “I’m not beautiful, and I’m not going to annihilate you.” Sandy begins to massage his scalp a little. If anything it’s Kozzy’s beauty that’s going to destroy him.

            “Yes you are,” Kozzy murmurs. Sandy debates for a brief moment about asking him to clarify that statement, when Kozzy continues, “I can see it in your light. Your edges are gone, Sandy. All the light is connected to you. You look like the sun on the first day of creation. You were there, weren’t you? Yes you were. I know that now.”

            Sandy glances at his watch. Only twenty minutes. North must have tried something new.

“That’s good, Kozzy. I’m glad you know that. You can tell me everything you know.”

            “Not just the creation of Earth…back before that…at the big bang…you helped the stars dream.”

            “Tell me how you know this, Kozzy.”

            “Because I was there too…back then…we were the same…connected…nothing’s changed…we’re the same person. I didn’t know that just now. Now I do. But you’re pretending not to be me so you can hold me. That’s nice. That’s what someone as golden as you would do.”

            “And you must be golden too, since we’re the same,” Sandy says. This is easier than he thought it was going to be. Six hours of this is going to get a little dull though, but he has some paper and paint that maybe Kozzy’d like to mess around with—he notices Kozzy raising his arm and looking at it questioningly.

            “No…no…look at me…I’m not golden at all. I’m pitch black.” _Shit. Was his darkness hang-up really related to his_ clothes _? He had heard about that first bad trip, why hadn’t he thought of that? It was such a simple thing to change about the setting! Best trip guide yeah right. Okay, okay. He was just distracted. It wasn’t as if the situation wasn’t salvageable. Anyway, it probably wasn’t just about the clothes._

            “Sandy…” he was beginning to sound distressed. “I’m covered in darkness. I don’t want to be. I shouldn’t be around someone so golden.”

            “Kozzy…look at me Kozzy. You just said we were the same. So it can’t be real darkness covering you. The darkness on you isn’t you. You’re just as golden as me.”

            He didn’t look convinced. “How can I tell?”

            “Look,” said Sandy, pulling at his sweater. “Does this feel like it’s part of you?”

            “Oh, I see…the darkness is false. Yes…I can see that the edges of my hands are going…the darkness is holding me together. It’s keeping me from being the same as you really.”

            “But you’re better than the darkness Kozzy.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Yes, I’m sure, Kozzy. There’s no darkness in you.”

            “Yes…I believe you. I feel it.” He smiles. “I’m ready to let go of the darkness.”

            “Good, Kozzy.” That wasn’t so bad. He had gotten worried for nothing. Kozzy just needed something to talk him through that moment. Sandy watches him carefully as he sits up, flexing his long fingers.

            “I’m connecting to the world light now…it’s going to help me get clean.” Sandy nods serenely, and then suddenly freezes, staring. Kozzy’s decided to take the idea of getting rid of the darkness literally. He’s taken off his black shirt, and his pale skin does seem almost glowing in the low light of the lamps Sandy has lit. His slim, powerful core is blatantly perfect, and even more so the way he is now, with no sense of shame at all. He’s known other people to take off their clothes while tripping, but none that he’s been so pleased to see. Kozzy stands up, sighing, and walks toward the window. The glow of the streetlight makes him seem sallow, and he frowns when he looks at his skin. “Not golden enough,” he says, and Sandy wonders the best way to reassure him when he again takes the literal route and removes his shoes, socks, trousers, and underwear. His underwear aren’t black, and so, on a purely technical level, Sandy thinks, he needn’t have removed them, but he’s certainly not going to complain.

            If Kozzy wasn’t high right now, Sandy knows he would just throw caution to the wind and beg to touch him, kiss him all over, tell him that everything was going to be okay, but he just can’t. It would probably ruin the trip, and Sandy knows he shouldn’t make decisions for Kozzy in this state. _But what if this is the bad thing I do when I’m young and regret when I’m older?_ No. No, he just can’t. You can’t plan what you’re going to regret when you’re older.

            “Sandy…I think I’m part of the light now. I can feel it moving through me, from me to you and everyone downstairs and everyone in San Francisco and America and even Grin. It’s changing everything…you never told me your room was in the center of the universe…”

            _Six hours_ , thinks Sandy, _six hours, five and a half even, he’ll have come down and I’m just going to throw myself at his feet. I don’t care_.

            Kozzy walks around the room, gently touching the various wall hangings, while Sandy gets out some paints and paper. Kozzy may want them, and, well, even if he doesn’t, Sandy’s got to do something to distract himself. Still, there’s no question of what he’s going to draw. He begins a sketch of Kozzy, making sure to keep paying attention to what he’s saying, making sure he still sounds relaxed and peaceful. He is. He is still part of the light. Everyone is part of the light. He is part of Sandy. He never knew how compassionate magenta was. He is soon going to become a centaur. _You’re already partway there_ , Sandy thinks, smirking, as he sketches the lower half of Kozzy’s body.

            When the sketch is done, Sandy thinks he might as well start finishing it. As he begins to paint, Kozzy keeps talking about the true oneness of everything. Between listening to that voice and looking up frequently to reference his subject, Sandy’s making very slow progress. He’s thinking he’s just going to switch to ink for Kozzy’s hair when he looks up and Kozzy is right in front of him, sitting on his knees.

            “Sandy. I need you to answer a very difficult question. And I know you can because you’re in the light too.”

            “Tell me, Kozzy.”

            “Am I alive or dead?”

            It’s a fairly normal question for this stage of the game, but Sandy knows he has to be prepared for any reaction. He moves his paints off to the side and places the painting on a low table. “I think you can tell that doesn’t matter any more. You’re as alive as you want to be. You’re as alive as everything.”

            “Oh.” Kozzy begins crying. “I was hoping I was dead.  I’ve been feeling so good, you know, so I knew I couldn’t be alive. But if I am alive then I have to admit that taking off the shadows didn’t fix me. I may look golden but there are still shadows inside.”

            It’s not too self-indulgent to gently stroke Kozzy’s shoulder now, is it? “You can let go of the shadows,” Sandy says, “let them go and they won’t hurt anyone else. You told me I was light. Let them go and I can stop them.”

            “I c-can’t Sandy…I can’t! I’m not holding on to them, they’re holding on to me. You have to take them out! You have to help me!”

            “Shhh.” Sandy takes one of Kozzy’s hands. “Remind me how.”

            Kozzy lies down on the floor so that his head is resting on the pillow from before. “You have to draw the signs of light on me where the shadows are. Your light sinks in to me, like now, when you’re holding my hand. But you have to draw the signs.”

            Sandy wonders if Kozzy notices that he’s blushing. But this is Kozzy’s idea, so it’s okay, right? Right. “Where are the shadows?”

            “Everywhere.” Kozzy shudders.

            “Okay, it’s going to be okay Kozzy. I understand.” This is going to kill him for sure. “I’m going to start with your feet and go to your head.” _Can I draw the signs with my tongue?_

            Sandy decides to use the Cyrillic alphabet that North’s been teaching him as the signs of light. It will force him to focus on something other than the gorgeous young man lying on the floor who is making happy little noises as he believes shadows are exorcised from his body. One leg. The other leg. Hips. Should he? Kozzy did say everywhere. Cock. It twitches under the light touch of his fingers and Sandy glances at Kozzy’s face to see his reaction. His breathing seems a little elevated, his pupils are dilated. But he’s been kind of agitated overall and with the acid and the not-so-bright lights, his eyes don’t mean anything. He returns to his drawing. Stomach. Waist. Chest. He makes up some complicated collection of lines for the place over Kozzy’s heart.

            “That was most of them,” Kozzy says.

            Collar bones. Shoulders. One arm, hand, all the fingers. The other arm, hand, and fingers. He draws hearts on the palms. Neck. Jawline. Lips. Cheekbones. Nose. Kozzy closes his eyes. Eyelids. Temples. Finally, Sandy makes up another intricate symbol for his forehead.

            Kozzy opens his eyes. “They’re all gone…you got them all.” He smiles. His crooked teeth make Sandy think of the idea that minor flaws in something make the perfection of the whole that much more obvious. “You know how I know?”

            “How?”

            “I can see your thoughts now.”

            _Gee, I hope not_ , thinks Sandy, given the constant background of lust he’s been steeped in since Kozzy decided to get naked.

            “I couldn’t before…they’re above your head…like little golden sculptures.”

            “Are they good thoughts, Kozzy?”

            “They’re very good thoughts.” His eyes are sleepy. Sandy glances at his watch. It would be a little strange for someone to fall asleep in the middle of a trip, but it isn’t unheard of. To his surprise, it’s already 12:30 in the morning. That makes Kozzy about four and a half hours into his trip—he must have been working on the painting for longer than he thought.

            Kozzy laughs a little, interrupting his train of thought. “Your thoughts are funny things about bodies.”

            _North, I swear, if you made acid that can_ actually _induce telepathy I am going to kick your Russian ass…_

            “I had forgotten I had a real body for a while…it was the shadows that made me think that…now I’m all right with being real.” Hypnotized, Sandy watches Kozzy trail his long fingers from his neck and over his chest. He’s looking at Sandy—well, at the space just above Sandy’s head—the whole time. Sandy’s mouth has gone dry. _Kozzy I wish you knew what you were doing._

            “Sandy, you don’t need to remind me,” says Kozzy, even though Sandy hasn’t said anything. “I know we’re the same. It’s funny being on Earth, though, isn’t it? We can’t figure out how to not look like we’re different people. I bet that makes other people confused. But they need to understand. I have an idea.”

            Downstairs, Bunny or whoever’s still awake has put _Surrealistic Pillow_ on the turntable again. Grace Slick’s voice echoes up through the floorboards.

 

            _Don’t you want somebody to love?_

_Don’t you need somebody to love?_

_Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?_

_You’d better find somebody to love._

 

            “Come closer Sandy.” Kozzy beckons him nearer, as if he’s going to whisper something in his ear. “Closer.”

            _Wow, we’re close enough to kiss right now_ , thinks Sandy, and in a remarkable moment of mental synchronicity, that is exactly what Kozzy uses their proximity to do. He’s clumsy, but enthusiastic, and Sandy is just fine with that, he can help him improve, no doubt he’s a fast learner and there’s nothing like learning by doing, right? He leans down over Kozzy so that his hands are on either side of his body _it’s just for better balance no Sandy he’s HIGH right now it was his idea he can’t even admit that he likes men he’s probably coming down from his high by now that’s not true and you know it but this is just kissing JUST kissing the rest of your body didn’t get that memo there wouldn’t be any harm in making out until he got sober again and sure this has disaster written all over it but it’ll be worth it, worth it and it’s still Kozzy’s idea_ —Kozzy pulls Sandy closer, rubbing his hands over his back, and oh, if only Sandy had thought to take off his shirt earlier of course there was never really an appropriate time.

            It turns out that Kozzy thinks that right now is an appropriate time. He mutters nonsense as he breaks the kiss “Got to work harder the edges aren’t dissolving like I thought” and slips his hands underneath the loose, brightly patterned shirt Sandy’s wearing. Sandy knows he’s going to have trouble with the buttons on the cuffs and the string tying the wide collar shut so he undoes those fastenings—hell, even he has a little trouble with them while Kozzy’s slender fingers are flying over his upper body and he’s supposedly sober. That done, Kozzy manages to get his shirt off easily. Sandy decides he might as well take off his watch as well, though he is supposed to be keeping track of the time…

            “Press your skin against mine, Sandy otherwise we’ll never be one person.” Sandy’s happy to oblige, though he tries to pretend he’s keeping some level of decorum by still leaning off to the side and most certainly not climbing on top of Kozzy, though hopefully that option will still be available as soon as Kozzy starts to seem sober.

            By the time the album ends, Sandy is pleased to have introduced Kozzy to the concept of love bites—he’s going to need a scarf tomorrow but Sandy has extras—and is enjoying the fruits of such introduction as Kozzy nips and sucks at his neck. He is also ready to simply scream in frustration—suddenly Kozzy pulls back, looking confused.

            “Sandy? What? Ohno. But I don’t understand. I still want…”

            Sandy works to calm his breathing. “Kozzy. Do you feel like you can make rational choices now?”

            “ _That’s_ what you’re asking me at this moment? I thought I was making rational choices this whole time! But I was deciding to kiss you and I’m sorry and I decided to get naked and—” he glances down at himself, blushing more than Sandy has ever seen anyone blush before. He grabs the nearest piece of clothing, which happens to be Sandy’s shirt, to cover up his erection, which Sandy has been so diligent about not touching until he sobered up—well okay maybe there had been a few little touches but seeing Kozzy fully hard was not something that was easy to wait for. The thin cotton doesn’t really disguise anything.

            “I’m sorry,” Kozzy says again.

            _No Tooth, he’s really not like the others. He was shy_. “Kozzy. Look at me. I mean it. Look at me.” He sees his glance flit to the mark he was just busy making before tentatively looking Sandy in the eyes. “Stop apologizing. We weren’t doing anything I didn’t want to do.”

            He looks confused again. “But the acid…?”

            “Acid is not going to make you straight. Leary is full of crap. Anyway, things that aren’t diseases don’t have cures.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

            “Because like I said, some things you do for their own sake. You remember the light? You remember the universe?”

            Kozzy nods slowly. “I can still see echoes. Feel them.”

            “That will last for a couple more hours. And weren’t those worth it?”

            “I felt like I was fine the way I was. That I was part of everything, and I didn’t need to change.”

            “Hold on to that feeling then! Kozzy, there is nothing wrong with what or who you want. And I guess I ought to say that I hope the ‘who’ you want is still me now that you’re coming down because I am dying for you here.”

            “Really?”

            “Oh for the love of—Kozzy, I will sing your praises morning noon and night but right now I am really tired of talking. I want you, and if you want me, I think we can figure out the obvious solution.”

            “But I—I’ve never—I don’t know what to do.”

            “Get ready to learn then. You were proving quite the quick study in kissing 101 and advanced topics: hickeys.”

            This surprises a laugh out of Kozzy, and Sandy uses the more relaxed moment to move over to the mattress, pushing aside the fabric hanging from the ceiling that forms curtains around it. He beckons Kozzy over, knowing that he probably looks a little ridiculous. But Kozzy does come over, and he’s licking his lips, and he sure seems to be taking this seriously and Sandy manages to spare one second to hope that it’s not just because he’s the first to offer and then there are many other things happening that he finds much more important. He’s got to devote his whole attention to being a good teacher, right?

 

***

 

            And that is how they reach the morning.

 

            “So it wasn’t a dream,” Kozzy says, reaching up to run his fingers through Sandy’s long blond hair. “They said you could get anyone to take a good trip, and I guess they were right.”

            Sandy sighs contentedly. “I was very unprofessional last night.”

            “I’m glad,” says Kozzy and the moment is perfect like a drop of honey falling on the tongue.

 

            Sandy is leaning forward to kiss Kozzy again when someone bangs on the door to his room. “Cover up childrens!” North booms. “We have made you the breakfast in bed.”

            “The door’s not locked,” Sandy hisses to Kozzy, who hurriedly pulls the blanket up to his neck. He has just enough time to decide he’s not going to risk going for his jeans when, as expected, North barges in, carrying two plates piled high with pancakes, and a tray with butter and syrup and a pitcher of orange juice on it.

            “Thanks North…” Sandy notices that the pitcher is the one with blue flowers on it. “Isn’t that the electric orange juice pitcher?”

            “Oh, da, but we wash. Tooth is using normal pitcher for hat form. So, here you are.” He sets the tray and plates of pancakes at the foot of the mattress.

            Sandy chuckles. How much energy did he think they had burned? “Why are there so many pancakes?”

            “Bunny made them,” North says, as if this explained everything.

            “Bunny can’t cook.”

            “Da! Da, is big problem. We teach. You sleep so late, you are lucky to get last batch. Tooth, Iceman, Jamie, Sophie, they all eat first tries. Pretty bad, but they do not care.” North turns to leave the room and then stops, remembering something. “By the way, Tooth has message for Kozzy. She says—”

            “Wait!” Sandy interrupts him. “Whatever Tooth has to say, it can wait. Actually it probably doesn’t need to be said at all. Tell her…”

            “Tell her she can’t make me leave,” Kozzy says, and the sky has never been bluer, the air has never been fresher, and is Kozzy actually perfect all signs point to yes… “I mean, unless you want me to,” he says, looking anxiously at Sandy, who answers him with a gentle kiss.

            North hides his look of surprise quickly, before smiling widely. “Okay! Will tell her that. Now I bid you farewell. Downstairs is big discussion about what to do about Sophie and Jamie—very boring, you stay up here. I will say you were still asleep. Likely enough, considering amount of noise.”

            North waves at them as he leaves the room, but Sandy knows Kozzy doesn’t see. He’s buried his face in the blanket and his ears are bright red. “You said it didn’t matter how loud I was!”

            “Hmm?” Sandy pours syrup over his pancakes. “It didn’t. It doesn’t. I mean, no one here’s going to be shocked, they know my preferences and it’s perfectly natural—oh! Did you think I meant no one would hear you if you were loud? No way man. I mean, we’re upstairs and we could hear Jefferson Airplane perfectly clearly from downstairs—this is the least soundproof house I’ve ever lived in.”

            “You deliberately withheld that information from me.”

            Sandy grins. “How about I say I trusted you to be smart enough to figure it out? Also I really didn’t want any of your attention to be focused on trying to be quiet. Pancake?” He’s rolled up one of the syrupy ones from his plate and is offering it to Kozzy from his hand. Kozzy looks at it.

            “Are you withholding information about forks from me now?” he asks, and Sandy rolls his eyes. Kozzy bends forward, and instead of taking the pancake, he eats it from Sandy’s hand. When he’s done, he carefully licks the syrup off of Sandy’s fingers and palm. Very carefully. Looking into Sandy’s eyes the whole time. “That wasn’t a very good pancake,” he says when he’s finished, “they’d probably be better cold.”

            Sandy laughs. He’s going to have to question why Kozzy’s treating him like the pretty one, like someone he longs to love, but that can wait for a little while. If Kozzy wants him, he’s going to have him. “I suppose I should remind you that right now we’re supposedly sleeping?” He strokes Kozzy’s face and trails his hand down his neck and lower, pulling the blanket away.

            Kozzy smiles at him. “So kiss me the whole time. I’ll swallow your moans, and you’ll swallow mine.”

            _It’s a good idea_ , Sandy thinks, as he obeys, lost in the unconscious beauty that is Kozzy. _How did I get so lucky you’ll always be mine and if you aren’t still those poor saps never got to see you sleepy and sexy in the morning after you made love for the first time, so perfect and young and wanting more…_

 

            Afterwards, when they are curled up together, face to face, legs entwined, the last question Sandy wants to ask is the one he knows he has to ask.

            “Kozzy…earlier you said you wanted to stay. And I want you to. But why do you want to stay? If you still do.”

            He looks away, up toward the ceiling. “You’ll probably think me foolish. And I know that this isn’t how normal people start relationships. Of course I’m not normal, am I? Hmm. But Sandy…you’re the first person I’ve met who’s made me feel like I could be accepted for all of who I am. Well, that sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? I haven’t even known you for a full day, I’ve fallen into bed with you, and now I say that you can accept me? I don’t know, Sandy…I like you. I like your friends, even if I don’t know if they’ll ever like me. You’re all so confident. Shining with life. That’s pretty rare, I think. I don’t know if I can fit in, but I want to try.”

            _Yes let me accept you let me heal you my tall dark stranger Kozzy Pitchiner can be anyone he wants to be_. Sandy rests his head on Kozzy’s chest. “I like those reasons. But…Kozzy, I guess I should say that if you want to be part of our house, I’ll argue for your place here. But there aren’t any strings attached. You should know that.” Sandy wishes he didn’t have to say what he’s about to say, wishes he didn’t feel like he needed to say it. “If you don’t wish to be my lover, just tell me. You’ve probably gotten plenty of offers around here and I…I’m just lovestruck and maybe I was wrong to throw myself in your way, but I don’t regret it. But I can’t to tie you down, Kozzy.”

            “Lovestruck?”

            “Yes…” Sandy lets his voice fall so low Kozzy has to curl closer to hear him. “Laugh at me if you want. I fall in love at the drop of a hat. At the knock on a door. It’s happened before…”

            Kozzy sounds nervous when he speaks. “So, um, do I have a lot of competition?”

            Sandy laughs. “I’m not exactly the kind of person people fight over.” He looks up at Kozzy, who strokes his back. He looks slightly confused. “Come on, Kozzy, do you want to make me spell it out? I’m short. I’m chubby. No one’s going to be impressed if they see you with me on your arm.”

            Kozzy combs his fingers through Sandy’s curly blond hair. “So is this another area where I’m abnormal? Then I’m glad. I don’t want to share.”

            Sandy sighs. “Kozzy, you can hold on to me as long as you want. But you probably won’t want to. But you can still stay here if you want.”

            “Sandy, why are you talking about this like it’s inevitable? Surely—oh. Is this why Tooth was so hostile to me at first?”

            He smiles. “You looked like a lot of bad choices she knows I tend to make.”

            “I don’t want to be a bad choice. I’m kind of scared, and I don’t know how this kind of relationship works, but I want to stay. I want to try.”

            Sandy feels like his heart is going to beat its way out of his chest. Kozzy is perfect, he is, he is, and he is different, and this is what he’s been waiting to hear for so long, and in the spring air it’s easy to push away the little thought that says _If this ends, it will be much worse than all the others._


	2. Summer of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 1967-October 1968. Life in North's house in the Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love and beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess I don't understand the concept of short fiction.
> 
> Also, Tooth was Indian before she became a Guardian, right? That's what I've gleaned from the internet so we'll go with that.

As the days pass and the weather gets warmer, more and more people arrive in the Haight-Ashbury. This is not going to be a normal summer. The revolution is nigh, as Jamie often says. The strength of his belief in the movement is astonishing. He and Iceman are often gone from the house, volunteering their time with a group that is planning to set up a free clinic for all the wanderers who keep coming to San Francisco.

            Sophie, younger and shyer, is almost adopted by Tooth, who is quickly resigned to the teenagers staying for the summer. Tooth makes Sophie write to her parents, gets a post office box for the return address, and tries to impress upon her the idea that high school is still waiting in the fall. This seriousness is often forgotten by Tooth, however, as Sophie reveals an impeccable eye for color, an impressive ability to remember the locations of various tiny fabric and bead stores throughout the district, and a willingness to stand perfectly still as a mannequin as Tooth flutters around, pinning and sewing and talking about her next project.

            The walls of the upstairs kitchen, the hallways, and Bunny’s room become covered with the posters he’s making. Some of them he’s hired to do, and some of them are simply brilliantly colored messages of hope in melting letters that he likes to place all over the city. Sometimes there’s code in the images that will tell people in the know where to find Sandy or moonbloom.

            North starts to make moonbloom even cheaper, but there’s still more than enough to keep them in fabric and ink and good food and the Victorian house, no matter the continuous presence of a multitude of couch surfers, none of whom stay permanently like Jamie and Sophie.

            And all the people who come to Sandy for guidance—and there are a lot of them, these days—can’t help but notice that he’s got a shadow now, a tall dark shadow who is always entwining his fingers with Sandy’s. When the people outside the house that know Sandy see him with that same shadow for weeks and then months, they begin to smile, and talk. Has it really worked out for him this time? In late May the question seems answered, as Kozzy is seen walking around with Sandy wearing a fantastic frock coat of a dark fabric that shimmers between purple and midnight blue. It’s a bit warm for the season, but it could only have been made by one person, and she wouldn’t have made it for him if it seemed like he was going to disappear.

 

            For Sandy, the months are dreamlike. Which is not to say they’ve been entirely smooth. For a while, Kozzy is skittish about appearing in public together. Sandy worries that it’s because it’s him he’d be in public with, and Kozzy thinks “they”—he never clarifies who “they” are—will somehow find out and separate them. But they talk, and Sandy points out some of the stranger couples and more-than-couples and the next day Kozzy’s hand closes around Sandy’s in the open air.

            At home, North is the most blasé about the whole thing. Kozzy gets recruited into chores just like everyone else, and if sometimes North’s hugs seem a little threatening, well, that’s just North. During one of the family dinners soon after Kozzy arrived, Bunny tries to make a joke of the situation, but Sandy shuts him down with a look. Bunny still invites them both to help print posters and be lookouts while he sticks them in duller parts of the city. Iceman and Tooth are the most wary. Iceman only starts to really warm up to Kozzy after an incident that occurred on the edge of the Haight-Ashbury. Sandy, Kozzy, and Iceman are out for a walk, when they pass by a group of runaways sitting on the sidewalk, very obviously getting high.

            “Uh-oh,” says Iceman, as he sees a cop heading their direction. Kozzy catches Sandy’s eye, and there’s a reckless glimmer in his. Smoothly stepping between the kids and the cop, he pulls Sandy over and into a passionate kiss. When the cop catches sight of them, Iceman can see the wheels slowly turn in his head as he realizes that Sandy isn’t a woman despite his long hair. He turns around immediately. That’s enough to make him chuckle, but when one of the kids in the circle looks up and sees Kozzy and Sandy and says:

            “Gotta be careful around here dudes, pigs’ll bust ya for that,” he laughs so hard he can’t breathe. No one else Sandy’s been with would have ever done anything that could have made him laugh in a good way, so even though Kozzy’s a little bookish and still tends to take things too seriously, Iceman thinks that they can get along.

            Nothing works on Tooth but time. She watches Kozzy as the days turn into weeks, listens carefully to how Kozzy talks to Sandy when they’re hanging out with the group. Eventually, enough kind words between them; enough obvious caring between them mollify her.

            The group is heading out to the Avalon Ballroom to see a show one evening when Tooth rushes off to her sewing room. She returns with a bundle wrapped in misprinted posters. “Kozzy,” she says, looking a little embarrassed, “you can’t keep walking around the Haight in plain black. You want to look like you go with Sandy, right?”

            “Yes, yes, of course I do,” he says, glancing at Sandy. He looks like some denizen of another world, shirt and trousers dyed in shifting gold, wide cloth belt printed with moons, stars, and suns, and a long gold vest sewn with a swirling pattern of golden beads. Tooth is right if she thinks they don’t look like they go together. But Sandy hasn’t seemed to mind so he’s stuck with his old clothes. He’s afraid everyone will see him as a poser if he changes.

            “Well, since you’ve been staying around here so long, I—well, I made something to help with that.” She presses the bundle into his hands. “Pretend it’s your birthday. What?” She looks around at everyone. “Quit staring! You’ve seen people get presents before!”

            But Kozzy and everyone understand what this means. Kozzy is officially one of them now. Tooth thinks he’s not going to hurt Sandy, that he’s not going to hurt any of them. Sandy squeezes Kozzy’s hand.

            “Thank you,” says Kozzy, his voice almost stopped with emotion. He lets go of Sandy’s hand and opens the package. Within is a coat that falls open in dark ripples and swishes drastically with the slightest movement. The collar is high and almost flower-like, as are the ends of the long sleeves. There’s a slight touch of the Victorian in the pockets and buttons, but the rest is pure wonderland. Black buttons near the waist hold it closed, and the fabric is sewn with a pattern of jet beads that Kozzy can see mimic the patter on Sandy’s vest. The color of the fabric is almost unbelievable. At first Kozzy thought it was black, which puzzled him because didn’t Tooth just say he needed to stop wearing black? As he turns it in the lamplight, he sees that in reality it is the darkest of blue-violets, shifting from more blue to more purple depending on the angle. In certain turns, in certain highlights, a spark of bright blue shows. He puts it on over his turtleneck and it fits perfectly. “How did you manage that?”

            “Oh, careful observation, practice. Just something you learn.”

            Kozzy looks at her, stretching his arms out and running his hands down the sides. In the back it falls to his knees, in the front to mid-thigh. “No Tooth, it’s not just something you learn. As you’ve reminded me, I’ve had occasion to get clothes tailored before. What you’ve done is simply astonishing.”

            “Yeah, yeah. Don’t let anyone spill beer on that at the Avalon tonight, okay? I had to call in favors and bribe someone to get that fabric.”

            “Thank you Tooth,” Sandy says. _Thank you for accepting Kozzy._

            Tooth laughs. “I admit I did try for a flattering cut, but it’s still a present for Kozzy first, Sandy.”

            Kozzy blushes a little, and Sandy thinks he ought to blush more, so he says, “You know, it’s really too warm outside to be wearing a turtleneck and a coat.”

            Kozzy of course doesn’t get it at first. “Well I really want to wear Tooth’s present tonight, so I guess I’ll just have to endure it.”

            Sandy shakes his head. “Just lose the turtleneck.”

            “Are you serious? The neckline nearly goes to my navel!”

            “Do you have any reason to think I might object to that?”

            “Don’t worry Kozzy, we make sure you are not kidnapped,” North interrupts. Kozzy laughs a little.

            “All right, all right, I’ll go change.” He shakes his head. “I never thought I’d ever be going out like this a year ago.”

 

***

 

            Magazines and newspapers start to call this summer the Summer of Love. For North’s house, that proves true in more ways than one. One evening in early June, everyone except Iceman and Jamie is relaxing in the living room, passing around a joint and listening to the Beatles Album that just came out— _Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band_.

            “I’m a lonely heart,” Tooth says. She is braiding Sophie’s hair and sort of teaching Kozzy how to do so, but Sandy can tell that what Kozzy’s doing with his hair is not going to produce anything like a braid.

            “Tooth, you have us,” North says.

            “Man, you’re not even in the circle.” Bunny stretches out of the floor. “You’re sitting on that armchair like you own the place—”

            “According to deed I do.”

            “Like you own the place, smoking from that pipe shaped like a Christmas tree for God knows what reason.”

            “I offer to pass, you say no.”

            “Because I’m pretty sure that thing was never meant to be actually used. Like, it’s a novelty item. Only you have thumbs big enough to cover the carb.”

            The Discussion of the Christmas Pipe is one that Sandy’s heard many times before and doesn’t feel like getting into again. “Tooth? You were saying?”

            “I’m a lonely heart.” She takes one of the feathers from her own hair and puts it in Sophie’s. “I like someone but I don’t know if he likes me back.”

            “He does.” Sandy, Bunny, and North all say in unison.

            “You don’t even know who I’m talking about.”

            Bunny smacks his face with his palm, Sandy rolls his eyes, and North gives a heavy sigh. “Duh, it’s Iceman,” Sophie says.

            “Is it really that obvious?” Tooth looks plaintively at the others.

            “It’s reached the point where your nickname doesn’t make sense to anyone anymore because you only obsess over _his_ teeth when you’re high,” Bunny says.

            “And you talk about him all the time,” Sophie adds. “‘He’s so cool, he’s so much fun’—and that’s the only time you ever get distracted enough to stick me with a pin.”

            “You just need to tell him.” Sandy squeezes Kozzy’s knee affectionately. “He’s a little intimidated because you’re older than him and you’re kind of famous around the Haight.”

            “I’m only two years older…wait, were you guys talking about me?”

            “He only talked to me, Tooth. He thinks I’ll keep silence on this indefinitely but…” he leans back against Kozzy’s chest, “it’s not the time to let what you want pass you by.”

            “That braid was going so well though,” Kozzy says, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Sandy.

            “Okay!” says Tooth. “I’ll tell him as soon as he gets back. He should be back soon, right?”

            “Sooner than you think,” says Bunny, who’s caught sight of movement in the stained glass windows that flank the front door.

            In moments, Iceman and Jamie are inside. “The Free Clinic is open!” Jamie is practically jumping up and down with excitement. “We’re really doing this!”

            “Also we brought back Chinese take-out,” Iceman says with a smile, “which might be more interesting to all of you right now.”

            “Free Clinic is big news! Calls for a toast.” North heads toward the kitchen. “I will get vodka for all.”

            Sophie reaches back to poke Tooth in the side. “Okay! Okay.” Tooth stands up, smoothing down her green paisley minidress. She walks over to Iceman, who is taking little white take-out boxes out of bags and setting them on the coffee table. “Hey Iceman.”

            “Hey Tooth,” he smiles. “What’s up?”

            “All right so you know how when you started living with us and we got high and I stared at your teeth the whole time and kept talking about them it was actually because I thought you were cute overall and then now that I’ve seen how chill you are and how good you are with the runaways and you’re so much a part of what we do here but you make it into a game and basically you’re my favorite person and it’s not just because of your teeth or that you brought Chinese food. And. So.” Tooth leans forward and gives him a brief kiss on the lips.

            Iceman looks surprised for a moment before his face blooms into a grin. “You like me? But you’re so famous—I’m just another dropout trying my best.”

            “Iceman, don’t question these things!” Kozzy calls out.

            “Yes!” Tooth says. “He has good advice.”

            And Iceman embraces Tooth to give her a proper kiss.

            “Ha!” North comes in with the bottle and glasses. “Even better reason for a toast.”

            This time the little glasses of vodka do get to Jamie and Sophie.

 

***

 

            North makes them rearrange the upstairs rooms so that there is “lovebird side and not lovebird side. Lovebirds can annoy each other.” He shoots a stern look at Sandy. “Is not challenge.”

 

***

 

            Sometimes Kozzy likes to talk in the dark after he and Sandy make love. “Where are you originally from?”

“Abiquiu, New Mexico. The land of enchantment. I lived there with my parents. I miss it sometimes. I wouldn’t trade San Francisco for anything, but the mountains out there, at dawn or sunset…the red earth…the way they made me feel…it’s more than anything even moonbloom has made me feel.”

“Do your parents know what you are?”

            “Yes. My parents know I’m gay.”

            “How…how did they react?”

            Sandy runs his hand through Kozzy’s hair. “They were surprised at first. But later I think they were glad I told them instead of just keeping it secret and having them find out accidentally someday. We had a few tense days. But…I’m an only child. My parents were bound and determined to find a way to reconcile what their son said would make him happy with the rest of what they believed. And so they did some looking and they did some reading and the long and short of it is they don’t think there’s anything wrong about me. Well, they still wouldn’t have approved of the one-night stands, but I never meant for those to be one-night and I’ve got you now so it doesn’t matter.”

            Kozzy sighs. “My parents would disown me. No. They wouldn’t do me that courtesy. They wouldn’t believe me. They’d say I was just trying to rebel. They could probably make me believe it too. They’re good at mind games. Making me think what they want me to do is what I want to do.”

            He is silent for a long while, then softly kisses Sandy’s forehead. “Tell me about New Mexico,” he murmurs.

 

***

 

            In mid-June they all take a road trip down to the Monterey International Pop Festival. It’s an astonishing three days and nights of sound and color. North sticks moonbloom blotter in the abandoned socks and shoes of concert goers and laughs whenever he hears people wondering where it’s all coming from. Sandy and Kozzy are on just enough the whole time so that it seems like all this, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, The Grateful Dead, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and all the others, are heralding the beginning of an endless perfect summer—and Sandy’s not sure that’s just the acid. The memories are bright fragments. The blue-painted girl who asked Sophie if she was a fairy. “No, but my friends are.” Jamie’s passionate argument about Marx with some poor kid who clearly thought they were talking about the Marx brothers. Losing Bunny and finding him in a spontaneous drum circle. Tooth declaring there was too much mud and refusing to wear her custom clothes, which were all she had brought. Iceman begging her to compromise with paint. The patterns he makes are like frost flowers. Sandy’s impressed. He doubts he’d have as steady a hand painting on Kozzy. Tooth somehow giving a coat she made to Jimi Hendrix. The several people over the course of the three days who thought all eight of them were together.

 

***

 

            On the summer solstice Iceman finally buys a camera like he’s been saying he’s going to. It’s cool for the time of year, and so they decide to take a picture on the front steps of the house in their favorite clothes.

            A random passerby takes the picture, but it turns out excellently and Iceman is glad he spent the extra money for color film.

            At the top of the steps stands North, wearing a western-style shirt patterned in reds and browns, tucked into his jeans. There’s only a little gray in his hair and beard, which he both wears long. He’s rolled his sleeves up so that his Cyrillic tattoos are visible. To his right, looking at the picture, is Bunny, pigtails pulled to the front of his shoulders to show them off. He’s wearing a fringed gray leather vest with pink pearl buttons. He wears jeans too, and is barefoot. A few steps down, in front of North, stand Iceman and Tooth, each with an arm wrapped around the other’s waist. Iceman’s hair is still brown. He’s wearing a light blue shirt printed with a white paisley pattern and a pair of soft tan trousers Tooth made for him. He’s barefoot too. Tooth is resplendent in the late afternoon sunlight, in a glimmering tunic of feathers that fade from gold at the neckline to blue at the hem. Under that she wears shimmering blue tights and purple flats. Bright feathers also adorn her cloche hat, setting off her black hair. She’s done her makeup for this picture, and the pink eyeshadow sets off her light brown skin beautifully.

            To their left stand Kozzy and Sandy. Sandy’s standing on a step above the one Kozzy’s on to make their faces more level. Kozzy’s of course wearing the coat Tooth made for him, as well as a simple pair of trousers she made, loose and flowing and made of a black fabric with tiny specks of gold in it. He’s still got the square shoes though. Sandy’s wearing a coat that’s new, another present from Tooth. The gold is more metallic than his vest, and though the gold beads form the same pattern, the cut is more extravagant and dandyish. He wears light, cream-colored lounging pajamas underneath, dressed up with the moon and star belt. He and Kozzy are holding both of each other’s hands.

            Sitting on the lower steps are Jamie and Sophie. Jamie’s in his normal jeans, but he’s got a green and silver poet shirt from Tooth to wear now instead of his usual t-shirts. Sophie’s spreading her arms to show off the winglike profusion of fabric on the pink, flowing dress Tooth has made for her.

            It’s amazing how all their smiles look natural in the picture. “It’s because we’re all actually, truly happy,” Sandy tells Kozzy, when he remarks on that fact. Iceman buys prints for all of them.

 

***

 

            One day, Sandy returns from an errand to find Kozzy sitting at the kitchen table looking shaken and shell-shocked. He’s holding a letter that trembles in his hand. Sandy has no idea what’s wrong, but he rushes forward to embrace him. Kozzy returns the embrace fiercely, as if Sandy is his life preserver in a hurricane-tossed sea. “I hate them Sandy. I _hate_ them. I hate them I hate themIhatethemIhatethem. I’m never going back. Never. NEVER. They’re murderers. They can’t see the value of anything beyond shitty money and shitty power and all the shit that’s _useful_ to them. Sandy,” and here his voice breaks, “they killed Grin. They killed him and I wasn’t there and he was so young those BASTARDS they knew what he was like motherfucking spoiled brats should have brought their own horses but they shouldn’t own them they don’t get it. Oh Sandy he was so real and so alive and now he’s DEAD because they _killed him_. They _shot him_.”

            After a while, when Kozzy becomes more coherent, the story that comes out is this: A senator, his wife, and their young son and daughter were visiting the Pitchiner home for a quiet, private luncheon “aka making a lobbying deal” Kozzy clarified. After the meal, the Pitchiners and the senator’s family had gone for a stroll around the grounds. The senator’s wife had remarked on the suitability of the place for riding, and Pitchiner senior had mentioned that they kept a few horses. The children had begged to go riding, and their father had said yes, so of course Pitchiner couldn’t say no. Everyone would go. There were six horses after all. The letter became vague at this point, but Gringolet had immediately been chosen by the children as the horse they wanted to ride. They had argued about it “probably really loudly and shrilly, with lots of sudden movements” and Pitchiner ordered Grin to be brought out despite the stablemaster’s advice against it. Here the letter got even vaguer. “Those brats were doing something they shouldn’t have, I guarantee it.” The fallout was that the boy had been kicked in the chest and was being treated for several broken ribs, and the girl had been bitten on her shoulder and hand. It was still unclear as to whether her finger was going to be saved. The senator and his wife had of course been livid, and ordered Pitchiner to destroy “that vicious animal” as the letter described Grin. And so he had. That very same day. The letter ended with a reassurance that it was all for the best, that Gringolet had really been a troublesome horse, and Kosmotis could get better ones now, perhaps ones that were even worth breeding.

            Sandy eventually reads the letter himself, and it’s even more awful than Kozzy’s recap. It brings to his mind the lines from _The Great Gatsby_ about “careless people”.

            When North finds out, he has the house hold a funeral. “We don’t even have a body,” Kozzy says, despondent.

            “When friends disappear, is not always body to say farewell to. Does not mean funeral is not needed.”

 

            A few days later, Kozzy begins drawing again. He draws horses, clumsily, at first. But he improves rapidly. Then he draws other things than horses. He draws densely, and if Sandy had to choose who seemed to be his influences, he would say Hieronymus Bosch, Durer, and Dali. The drawings are terrifying, and though on one level Sandy thinks they’re beautiful, he makes sure they’re all put away when he’s guiding someone on a trip.

 

***

 

            Time passes, and things return almost to the heightened normal of before—as normal as things can get in the Haight-Ashbury that summer, which is not very. They have a pocket of utopia, but the more people come, the more people willing to prey on them come too. The people playing music on the streets and giving away free food are beginning to be balanced by con artists. Time magazine writes an article about the Haight. In other cities, riots erupt. The war in Vietnam continues. In August “All You Need Is Love” hits number 1 on the U.S. charts. Despite everything else, Sandy believes it, and so does Kozzy.

            Still, there are signs that things can’t go on as they have. As the summer winds down, the population of the city begins to shrink. Tooth and, to everyone’s surprise, Iceman, persuade Jamie and Sophie that they have to go back and sort out high school. North buys them train tickets back to Pennsylvania. Jamie promises he’ll be back as soon as he gets his diploma, and Sophie promises to write. Maybe she could come back next summer. And if Tooth chooses to wear a mass-produced scarf on the day when the train leaves, that’s just practical, right? It catches Sophie’s tears, it serves its purpose. Tooth ends up washing it and working it into a quilt she’s making from all the fabric she’s made clothing for the house out of over that summer.

            In October the Grateful Dead’s house on Ashbury Street is raided. On the 6th, various people hold a fake funeral that proceeds down Haight Street. They call it the “Death of Hippie”. Cracks are forming, but they aren’t too serious yet. “Hippie” may be a commercialized word now, but people still want moonbloom. People still need Sandy’s guidance. And if he has a few more nights off, it’s not as though he or Kozzy is going to complain. And if Bunny sells a few more posters, and if Tooth actually sells a few of the things she’s designed, that’s good for them, right? Jack starts to work for the free clinic officially.

 

            About a week before Halloween, Kozzy admits that his birthday falls on the holiday. “Do you want a party?” Sandy asks.

            “N—actually, you know what, yes. I want a real birthday party, where people have fun and get weird and dance and let’s even have it be a costume party since it’s Halloween. Scary costumes welcome.”

            Tooth slumps down in her chair. “Kozzy you’re awful. Why couldn’t you have come to this decision months ago? A week! That’s no time at all!” Iceman squeezes her hand.

            “He’s asking for a party, Tooth. You don’t have to make the costumes.”

            “But I _want_ to.”

 

            “Why were you going to say no?” Sandy asks as they walk through the grocery store, buying what North’s listed as party necessities.

            “Come on, Sandy, it’s bound to be a boring story by now. My birthdays before were all at boarding school, where I was surrounded by people I didn’t really like, and last fall at Berkeley I didn’t tell anyone when my birthday was. It didn’t seem like a big deal.” Sandy smiles up at him. “What?”

            “Oh, I just can’t believe that not only did I get to be your first lover, I also get to throw you your first birthday party.”

 

            The party goes off without a hitch. The house is filled with a number of people that surprises Kozzy. As he moves through the crowd with Sandy, he keeps assuming that the next person he sees is going to be just a curious stranger who heard the music and walked in, but behind the strange and wonderful masks and costumes, it’s always someone he knows. “I hadn’t realized how many people I met since getting here,” he says in Sandy’s ear, straining to be heard above the rock-and-roll. Sandy simply lifts Kozzy’s hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. _Don’t sound so surprised that people like you_.

            The house is dressed as mad as a dream, Bunny somehow got a hold of some light machines, the music is mind-fillingly loud, and, perhaps because the guests know Tooth will be there, most everyone has gone all-out with their costumes, looking like creatures from dreams or nightmares. There is food, there is alcohol, there is electric punch with a chunk of dry ice in it. Yet on the kitchen table there is a small pile of objects which make it clear that this is not only a Halloween party. Many of the party-goers have brought presents—mostly strange, little things—but Kozzy can hardly believe they’re there at all. He runs his fingers through the bits of colored glass, particularly fine feathers, poems folded into odd shapes, candy, ink, a fragment of driftwood that looks a bit like a horse—found things, cheap things. Things that mean he is here, in the Haight-Ashbury. It feels like summer is back again.

            “I got you something too,” Sandy says, and he picks up a small wrapped bundle that was mixed in with the rest of the objects. “I got Tooth to teach me how, but you know I don’t have the practice she does—well, you’ll see.”

            Kozzy unwraps the bundle to find a long silk scarf of shifting yellows and golds. It looks like pure afternoon sunshine, and if the dye seems a little too heavy or light in some places, it sure doesn’t look like imperfection to him.

            “Tooth says it’s not your color at all.”

            “I hope she can deal with me wearing it all the time then.” He loops the scarf around Sandy’s shoulders and pulls him close. “So practical, too. Now.” He bends down and kisses Sandy slowly and deeply. “I think we’ve been at this party long enough. Don’t you?”

 

***

 

            Days pass slowly and months pass quickly for the house. North finally gets the phone repaired and Sandy calls his parents and lets them know—with a surprisingly little amount of fuss, thinks Kozzy—that he’s going to be staying in San Francisco for Christmas. Tooth and Iceman both have a lot more trouble. Kozzy writes—something cold and polite, not “Fuck you, you killed my horse”—only because Sandy asks him to. Bunny watches them deal with their blood relatives with amusement. “No one expects me to fly all the way back to Australia for Christmas!”

            It’s just their group of six for Christmas Eve, through you wouldn’t know it from the feast North prepares—asking only for minimal help this time!

            Everything is perfect, and seems like it’s going to be perfect forever. In the evening, they all doze off around the real Christmas tree North’s somehow managed to procure. “I still don’t know how you had time for all this,” Tooth says, he head resting on Iceman’s shoulder.

            “Yeah, all we needed was some snow.”

            North laughs much more softly than usual. “Iceman, I leave that part up to you. Myself, I am glad to not be in Siberia.”

            “So do you think Santa’s going to come tonight?” Sandy says, laughing a little and cuddling up closer to Kozzy, who is nearly asleep. In one of his hands is a Polaroid of him and Sandy kissing under the mistletoe.

            “Are you kidding?” he murmurs. “After last summer I think we’re all on the naughty list.”

 

***

 

            Things are calm for a little while longer. Sometimes Kozzy sells his more normal drawings of horses on the sidewalk in front of the house. He gets a job as a waiter. “What are you saving up for?” Sandy asks him.

            “You’ll see.”

            One day he quits and brings an old, upright piano to the house. The wood is completely scratched up and it’s out of tune so that anything using the lower range inadvertently becomes minor key. “I don’t know how to play, but I thought I would learn.”

            Sandy is delighted, and much to the exasperation of their housemates, they spend a lot of time playing simple duets and singing made-up songs. Eventually Bunny, Tooth, and Iceman become resigned, and then enthusiastic, participants.

            They learn that North can really play the piano and has a lot of complicated Russian music committed to memory.

            Iceman takes pictures of them all at the piano.

 

***

 

            “Sandy, I’m afraid. It’s too good. Nothing can be this good forever.”

            “We can.”

            “We saw what they did with the word ‘hippie’. They’ll do it with everything else. They’ll take the things that make them money and throw out everything else. They don’t want us to understand the universe. They just want us to buy. It’s a game that they’re good at. I come from that world, Sandy. That world doesn’t lose. No matter how much love there is…no matter how much love we have…we’re going to lose.”

            “I think we’ve won already,” Sandy says, running his fingertips down Kozzy’s naked chest. He kisses his jaw softly and reaches lower. “Doesn’t this feel like winning to you?”

 

***

 

            Kozzy has a list he keeps in his head. It starts like this: 1. The dimples on his cheeks when he smiles. 2. The way his hair shines in the sunlight. 3. The peace that fills me every time he speaks.

            …it is a very long list.

 

***

 

            In March, Sandy’s birthday present to himself is a frame for the picture of Kozzy he began the day they met. Ink and paint and pencil—he’s never finished it. There’s potential energy in it the way it is. Kozzy isn’t finished. He isn’t finished with Kozzy. He never will be. He hangs it on the wall, moving some fabric aside to do so.

            The picture falls and hits him on the head in the midst of a test of Kozzy’s present to him, based on a nervous and excited conversation they had one night—a pair of handcuffs. When it’s clear that the frame hasn’t hurt him, they both collapse in laughter. The handcuffs are tossed aside for another day in favor of the simpler pleasures of Kozzy’s mouth.

 

***

 

            In April of 1968, Martin Luther King is assassinated.

 

***

 

            In May, Jamie graduates high school and rejoins the house. He’s going to go to Berkeley in the fall, to major in political science. North tries to talk him in to a different major, but he never explains why.

 

***

 

            This summer is not like last summer. It is still wild, electric and psychedelic and full of music and love and friendship, but the cracks are beginning to show. There are more and more protests against the Vietnam War.

            But Kozzy has Sandy, and Sandy has Kozzy. They will be happy, and they will be in love, and brighten each other’s doubts, and soothe each other’s tempers, and their happiness and their love will spread to those around them, and in their little universe, all will be well. They describe each other in astronomical metaphors. They take moonbloom and make love as fifth-dimensional shapeshifters. They make plans to visit New Mexico in October, for Kozzy’s 21st birthday.

 

***

 

            On October 1, Kozzy gets a letter from Massachusetts. Nothing much is going on that day, so he decides to open it.

            “Dear Kosmotis,” it begins. He skims it quickly to get the gist of it without having to slog through the horrible formal phrasing, then wishes he hadn’t. His grandfather is dying, fading fast. There’s a one-way plane ticket in the letter, for a flight two days from now. Typically, the reason that his presence is requested is that he is a probable beneficiary of the will, not that he might want to see his grandfather alive one last time.

            “What’s wrong?” Sandy asks when he comes into the kitchen to wash clay off his hands. He’s set up a potter’s wheel in the attic. It’s horribly inconvenient, but there’s nowhere else in the house for it to go.

            Kozzy waves the plane ticket. “I opened a letter two days sooner than I should have. Now I have to make a decision. My grandfather is dying, and my family wants me to come back. For legal reasons. They think I’m in the will.”

            Sandy frowns briefly. “Do you want to see your granddad before he dies?”

            “Grandfather. Not granddad, not grandpa…I don’t know. I don’t want to see the rest of my family. My grandfather wasn’t someone I knew well…he paid for my public school education. But he never tried to tell me what I should take there. Thought the school name would be enough. He was probably right. Pragmatic old bastard.”

            Sandy is quiet for a bit. “Even if you don’t want to see your family…I don’t think you should disappear from their lives. If you’re going to cut off contact with them, you might want to tell them in person. I mean, after your grandfather’s affairs have been sorted out.”

            “If you knew them Sandy, you wouldn’t want me getting within a hundred miles of them. I know I’ve told you a lot of things over the past year and a half, but I haven’t even scratched the surface. They’re like sharks. Sharks that can make me feel like all my own ideas are wrong. I could face them with you, but I don’t think I could bear to have them even look at you. They don’t deserve it. They’re terrible people that are used to bribing their way into goodness. Like a building on some college campus weighs against the lives they don’t care about. They’re calling me back for one death, but they might as well be calling me back for their own funerals. They’re all already dead. They wouldn’t know what real life was if it kicked them in their passionless faces.”

            “Then tell them that, Kozzy. I’ll be here waiting for you when you come back. And I’ll never ask you to write to them again.”

 

***

 

            On October 3, a taxi picks Kozzy and his suitcase up early in the morning. The suitcase is small—he won’t be staying long. Still, he’s packed Tooth’s coat, the picture of everyone in front of the house, and the Polaroid of him and Sandy from Christmas. To remind him of what he has to return to.

            Not knowing the taxi driver, he and Sandy have had their good-bye kiss in the house. It started off gently, but Kozzy had turned it almost desperate before the taxi’s horn reminded him that he was really going back. One last time.

            As the taxi pulls away, his kiss-swollen lips press into a grim expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I just realized that in this story, Sophie is the same age as my mom. 
> 
> P.S. If anyone would be willing to draw me the photograph of the group picture on the front steps, I would give you my firstborn OR (easier to take care of) a kinkmeme fill of your choice.


	3. Let It Bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10/21/68-11/20/89 
> 
> The Summer of Love must end, and the winter is oh so long. 
> 
> Please don't be put off/worried, I promise this fic will have a happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so first off, all the main characters live. 
> 
> Second, please do not fear your legitimate mental health care provider. It's not the sixties anymore.
> 
> Third, don't listen to Mumford and Sons exclusively while reading. Or maybe, do just that.

10/21/68

 

When he was a child, Sandy was taught how to duck and cover in school. In fifth or sixth grade, he realized that this would do nothing to protect him or anybody else against the blast from an atomic bomb. Depending on how far away it was, they would see the bright flash, and then that would be it. Everyone smashed by the pressure wave and baked by the hellish heat. The end. If the bomb was close, it would be very quick. And that didn’t seem so bad.

            It would be much quicker than the past nine days.

            Nine days. The last letter Kozzy sent him looks like it’s been around for nine years. He knows he should be trying to save it, preserve it. He can’t stand to think that he might need to save it. Soon Kozzy will be back. Soon. He can throw out the letter when he comes back. He’s never going to be able to throw out this letter.

            It’s not that much different from the daily letters that started arriving on October 5th. Kozzy misses him. He has no privacy. His whole family is there. They think he’s been in school this whole time. It’s all a horrible farce.

            However, this last letter is different in one way. In it, Kozzy tells Sandy that his grandfather has died. They’re going to read the will formally tomorrow, and Kozzy’s going to tell them what he thinks of them and the truth about his life. And then he’s not going to spend one more second under their roof. He thanks Sandy for giving him the courage to do this. He’s not sure how he’s going to get home, but he’ll write and call the whole way back.

                                               

Love,

                                                            Kozzy.

           

That letter is dated the 10th. It arrived on the 12th. There have been no more letters, and no phone calls.

            Everyone in the house knows this. They gather for dinner on day 9, as Sandy thinks of it. All are subdued. The only words spoken are brief sentences of small talk. The clinic is good. Tooth’s project is good. Bunny’s posters are good. The food is good. Sandy wouldn’t know about that last one. Somewhere around day 3 everything started tasting the same. Finally, he can’t stand it. He rises, putting his hands on the edge of the table. “I get it, alright. I get that he’s not coming back. I get it! So you don’t have to pretend like I’m still pretending!”

            “Sandy,” begins Bunny.

            “No, Bunny. Don’t tell me to keep my hopes up. He’s gone. And you and everyone else realized it before me. I know it. Excuse me.”

Sandy leaves the table and goes up to their…his room. He curls up on the bed and pulls blankets over himself like they’ll protect him from what he fears. And what does he fear? Maybe the others think he fears that Kozzy is lying dead in a ditch somewhere, having hitched a ride with the wrong motorist. The thought has crossed his mind. But the others don’t know all the things Kozzy told him. Sandy doesn’t know what Kozzy’s family would have done, but he regrets having helped Kozzy become so fearless. No, he doesn’t fear that Kozzy has been killed, because his family wouldn’t have killed his body once he gave them the truth and all his weaknesses. They wouldn’t have done any physical violence at all. Not directly. Not unreasonably. It wasn’t their way. They still needed his body, after all. The son of the Pitchiner clan. They had a plan, and they needed his body for it. But they didn’t need his soul.

After some time, he hears a knock on his door. “Sandy?” It’s North. “Sandy, two people are here, wanting you to be guide. What should I tell them?”

Sandy gets up, keeping the blankets wrapped around his shoulders. He opens the door a crack and looks up into North’s concerned face. “Tell them Kozzy is gone. If they knew him they’ll understand, and if they didn’t I don’t care what they think.”

 

10/11/68

 

            Yellow light spills over an antique oriental rug in a room paneled in dark wood. Two men seated in leather wingback chairs are talking to each other. They look like brothers, and they are. Tall. Thin. Faces like birds of prey. They are dressed in black, for they are in mourning.

            “Orion, did you not feel endangered during my son’s little outburst today?”

            Orion nods. Dr. Pitchiner understands what is being asked of him. “Indeed I did, Asterion. In fact I also felt he might do himself an injury.”

            “To say nothing of his perversion.” A sliver of anger cuts into Asterion’s voice.

            “It is nothing serious,” Orion says soothingly. “In a year or two he will be as right as rain. My hospital’s methods are very advanced. Reliable.”

            “But others know. It has gotten outside the family.”

            “Asterion, do not worry. You heard him. The people who know are not the kind of people that we Pitchiners or our circles ever meet.”

            They sit in silence for a moment.

            “Do you have anything with you that might calm the boy? He must be made presentable for the funeral. The O’Haras will be attending, you know. I expect they will bring young Stella.”

            “One must be prepared for any circumstance in emotional times like these.”

            “Thank you, brother.”

 

10/15/68

 

            Fog. Real fog? Fog in his head? Fog fog fog. What does fog mean? Isn’t there supposed to be a light somewhere? Fog doesn’t go inside. He is inside. It must be in his head. Oh. Underwater voices. Not mermaids. He’s heard those before. When he was with Sandy. Who is not here. Why not? A conundrum.

            “Nurse Miller, go through his suitcase, will you? Discard anything strange, along with any belts, shoelaces, things of that nature.”

            “Yes Dr. Pitchiner.”

            He is in a room. It is not an interesting room. He is led to a narrow bed with crisp white sheets. His suitcase is set down next to him. He hears the clasps click. They echo. It is a small room for an echo, but the inside of his head is very large.

            “All right Kosmotis, what have we here? My you own a lot of black. Must be a family thing. Ooooh, but this isn’t black. Wow-ee. Where’d you get this? I mean, it’s not something a man should wear, really, but I’ve read your chart so I’m not surprised. This is what the doctor meant by unusual, didn’t he?” Miller runs her antiseptic-smelling fingers over the shimmery blue-violet.

            Kozzy reaches out and weakly grasps her wrist. “Don’t throw out. Tooth made…for me.”

            “Got you doped to the gills, haven’t they? Wait—did you say Tooth? One of my friends’ little cousins went off to California, came back in this crazy dress, said it had been made by Tooth.” Miller looks at it thoughtfully. “Apparently she’s going to be some kind of big designer once she stops making stuff for all those freaks. Tell you what, Kozzy, I’ll keep it safe for you.” She folds it neatly and severely and sets it on a chair. “Could be very valuable someday,” she murmurs.

            Kozzy shakes his head. There’s something not quite right about this, but he can’t figure it out. “Not Kozzy…to you.”

            “Well la-di-da, Master Pitchiner! You won’t be so proud after your treatment starts, I’ll tell you what. Even if you are the big boss’s nephew.” She rummages through the rest of the suitcase. She snorts a laugh. “Is _this_ the guy you got yourself locked in here for? Maybe there really aren’t that many of you if you had to settle for some dumpy little creampuff.”

            He is trying to push the fog aside with his hands, or he feels like he is. “Shut…up…bitch.” He reaches for the polaroid in her hands, but it’s hard to focus and he misses, grabbing her arm instead.

            “Indeed, Master Pitchiner? Well that’s verbal and physical assault, looks like you get a brand new jacket today.” She crumples the polaroid, then the larger print she’s also found in the suitcase, and tosses them in the wastebasket. She stuffs his coat inside her uniform and walks to the door. “Guards! Guards! Help!”

 

10/25/68

 

            “Iceman.” Tooth speaks quietly in his ear. They are in the kitchen, and they’ve been watching Sandy walk around the house all morning. He’s been moving art supplies from place to place, as if he’s going to start a new project, but he never settles down to begin anything. “Is my tailoring starting to fail, or am I imagining things?”

            “You’re not imagining things.” Iceman looks down at the floor. “Maybe I should have said something earlier, but I don’t think Sandy’s been eating except at the family dinners.”

            Tooth sighs. “It’s like he’s just forgotten he’s supposed to.”

            Kissing Tooth on the cheek, Iceman says, “How about this? I’ll take Sandy out for lunch. He probably needs to get out of the house anyway.”

 

            Sandy isn’t enthusiastic about Iceman’s idea, but there’s really nothing else he has to do, so he joins him. They walk to a café that’s only been open a couple weeks, and Sandy wonders if Iceman chose it on purpose because it wouldn’t have any memories of Kozzy in it to haunt him.

            He and Iceman talk about the free clinic and the news Iceman has of various people they both know. Iceman can tell it’s taking a lot out of Sandy to keep up a normal conversation, and he notices that Sandy is only picking at the sandwich he ordered. So he decides to confront the issue directly. “Tooth and I noticed you’re not eating.”

            “You see me eat at the house dinners.”

            “Sandy, come on. We all live in the same house. We notice. Tooth can make a tailored outfit for someone based on looking at them on the TV once. She’s going to notice if the things she’s made for you aren’t fitting the way they used to. Also North made cinnamon rolls a few days ago and they are actually still sitting around and getting stale now, which, if you’ll recall, has _never_ happened before.”

            The corner of Sandy’s mouth twitches up slightly. “I…it just doesn’t seem worth the effort. Nothing really tastes good…meals mark the passage of time. Plus I could stand to lose a few pounds, yeah?”

            “If you had told me a month ago that you wanted to start fulfilling your dream of becoming a male model, I would be helping with that plan. But that’s not why you’re doing this. You’re doing this because of Kozzy.”

            Sandy covers his face with his hands. “Jack, I _miss_ him. I feel like I’ve been moving with a lead blanket draped around me. I feel like I’ve been trying to swim through tar. And I’m just so, so scared.”

            “Do you,” Iceman isn’t sure he wants to ask this question, “do you think he’s dead? And that’s why we haven’t heard from him?” It’s something Iceman has thought of. After being around Kozzy and Sandy, death is one of the few things he thinks could keep them apart.

            Sandy shakes his head. “I think that there are worse things. His family is awful, Jack.”

            “Yeah, I remember the horse thing.”

            “It’s more than that. Subtle things. When he told me, he was always asking me if he seemed like he was crazy, or if he was taking normal things the wrong way. And I know I only got his perspective, but I know him. He can barely tell a lie if his life depends on it. He comes from a world we can’t even imagine, Jack. And it’s not the money…it’s that he was always around people that don’t take no for an answer when they don’t want to. And when he came out here he was so close to escaping and then they got him to come back, to open that door just a tiny crack and…” Sandy takes a deep, shaky breath, his hands still over his face. He can feel wetness on his fingers, and hates it, he doesn’t want to cry in public, he doesn’t want to cry at all, because he cried for people who deserved it less and so now he shouldn’t be crying, he should be _screaming_ if anything but then how would he stop?

            Iceman reaches out and grasps his shoulder. “Sandy. I know it’s dark now, but if he’s alive then there’s always hope, right? We could go to Massachusetts and kidnap him back, whatever you want.” Sandy’s shoulders shake and Iceman’s not sure if it’s from crying or laughing.

            “This isn’t a story, Jack. We can’t do that. And what if he doesn’t—”

            Jack decides he’s going to let the unfinished sentence pass by for now. “Okay, okay. But if it’s not a story you need to eat, like book characters don’t, and you need to stop calling me Jack, because there are lots of characters in stories named Jack.”

            Sandy presses his hands carefully against his eyes and wipes them on a paper napkin. He almost looks like he hasn’t been crying. “Okay, Iceman. Okay.” He takes a bite of his sandwich and chews slowly. They sit in silence for a while, and Iceman thinks Sandy’s gotten the idea that if Kozzy is still alive he has to work to stay alive too.

            Then, in through the door walks one of Tooth’s least favorite people. Andrew Brandt is about six four, with long flowing chestnut locks, and the body of a Greek god. Like Narcissus. _Wait_ , thinks Iceman, _Narcissus wasn’t actually a god, right?_ He decides not to care. The comparison is too apt. What he knows from Tooth and what he saw is that a few days before Sandy’s twentieth birthday, Brandt showed up, asking for someone to talk to, trip guidance, anything. “Anything” had turned out to be a “trial run” on homosexuality, with Sandy. He had then vanished for a few days after promising to come back. When he did come back, it was for Sandy’s birthday party, in the company of someone who looked much more like him. There was some sort of tearful argument—Iceman knows this from Tooth—and the phrases “early birthday present” and “you should write me a thank you note” were uttered. Iceman remembers North inexorably pushing Andrew and Andrew-clone out the door. It all seems so long ago, but now that Iceman thinks of it, it all happened only a few weeks before Kozzy showed up.

            And of all the places he could have chosen to eat lunch, Andrew the Asshole, Brandt the Brat, has picked this café.

            Iceman ducks his head and wills him not to notice them. If he just behaves like a normal person, Iceman can leave with Sandy as he stands in line to order. And so what if the sandwich isn’t finished, he can talk Sandy into even stale cinnamon rolls at home.

            Of course Brandt does not behave like a normal person. “Why, as I live and breathe! Alexander!” He draws out Sandy’s full name and Iceman can’t help but make an expression of disgust. Was that supposed to be sexy? No one calls Sandy by his full name, ever. If his friends want to get his attention, or call him out on his mischief, they extend his nickname and call him Sanderson. “And I see that the rumors are true! Your shadow is gone!”

            When Andrew started talking, Sandy’s shoulders tensed, and his expression changed from sorrowful to stony. Now, as Brandt keeps talking, standing behind Sandy, Iceman can see his friend getting angrier and angrier.

            “Went back to mommy and daddy and their money back east, am I right? What did he tell you before he left? ‘It’s not you, it’s me?’ Well, it surely takes a lot to separate someone from all that money and power, and I’m surprised he stayed as long as he did, seeing as you were offering a lot in all the wrong ways.”

            Iceman stares at him in disbelief, but he just goes on.

            “Or maybe it was the other way around. Did you send him back? Finally realize that he never fit in around here? That you should try for someone more radical? Less timid? That must be it, I think. I can see that you’ve embarked on a course of self-improvement since he left. It’s working. Keep it up, Alexander, and maybe you’ll even have a chance with someone like me.” Andrew places his hand on Sandy’s shoulder.

            Sandy blows out a breath through his nose. Iceman raises his eyebrows and flicks his gaze between the two of them. Calmly, precisely, Sandy wraps a napkin around his hand and lifts Andrews hand from his shoulder and drops it. Then, he pushes his chair back, stands up, and turns to face Andrew, who seems to think that the thing with the napkin was funny, and is now laughing inanely. Sandy looks up at him, expression still angry, but otherwise appearing serene. Andrew struggles to control his expression, and ends up stifling snickers as he looks down at him. “Aren’t you going to _say_ anything?”

            Sandy purses his lips, shakes his head, and without warning, hauls back and punches Andrew in the throat.

            _Yes!_ Iceman thinks, then, _oh wait that’s still illegal_. The rest of the café is staring at them now, even those who had pretended to ignore Andrew’s monologue. Andrew has staggered back, wheezing, into another table. It is dead silent.

            Iceman grabs Sandy before he can go for Andrew again. He pushes him out the door, and just as he leaves, he turns back to the still silent and staring café. “Bye everyone, enjoy your lunch, and don’t act so shocked. I am dead sure there are at least a few of you in here who have thought of doing the same thing.”

 

            Sandy hurries back to the house, and Iceman has to jog to keep up with his walk at times.

            Once back, it turns out Bunny, Tooth, and North are all around and about in the kitchen and living room. “Whoa, Sandy,” says Bunny, when he slams open the door. “You look mad as a cut snake.”

            Iceman runs in, close on Sandy’s heels. “Sandy sort of got in a fight,” he says.

            “Sandy!?” Bunny looks like his eyes are going to fall out of his head.

            Tooth hurries in to the entranceway. “With who?”

            “Did you remember to keep thumb outside of fist?” Bunny shoots North a look at this question, but North only shrugs.

            “Yes, North, I did,” says Sandy. “I punched Andrew Brandt in the throat.”

            “Oh, well,” Tooth says, smoothing her dress. “I’ve wanted to do that for ages.”

            Sandy sinks to the floor. “But Bunny’s right! I don’t do things like that! I feel like I’m losing my mind! I don’t want to be like this!”

            “He deserved—” Iceman begins.

            “No, he didn’t! He’s a human being and he didn’t deserve it! Do I get to spread pain just because I’m feeling my own? Oh God. I feel like I’m half of a ying-yang that someone still expects to work as a wheel!”

            “Right,” North says to himself, nodding. He touches the shoulders of Tooth and Bunny, catches Iceman’s eyes. He then steps forward, picks up Sandy as easily as if he were a child, and carries him over to the living room, where he sits down on the floor with his back against the couch. Sandy is crying, almost silently, into his shoulder now. Tooth settles down next to them where she can draw smooth circles on Sandy’s back. Iceman gets up on the couch and lies down so that his face is level with Sandy’s when or if he wants to talk. And though it’s not usual, Bunny leans against North’s other side, and reaches out to hold one of Sandy’s hands.

            “Not half of a ying-yang, Sandy.  Part of a flower. One of our petals has been pulled off, but we’ll pull through.”

 

10/28/68

 

            Iceman is away at the clinic when Bunny comes back from the embassy in the afternoon. “Bunch of whackers.” He tosses a handful of papers on the coffee table. Sandy is reading, Tooth is working on her quilt, and North is attempting to tune the piano. They all look up at his pronouncement. “Bureaucracy strikes again. I missed a deadline, my forms weren’t filled out properly, oh wait there was a new form introduced we never told you about—long story short I’m going to have to go back to Australia to straighten all this out.”

            Sandy sees Tooth accidentally stick her finger with the needle. North gets up and lays a hand on Bunny’s shoulder. “You will come back, though, yes?”

            “Of course, mate. And hey, it’s only Australia. I could use a vacation, see the family. I’ll be back in no time.”

            “When do you have to leave?” Sandy asks quietly.

            Bunny picks up the papers and rifles through them. “Before 10 November.”

 

10/31/68

 

            On Kozzy’s birthday, Sandy goes to the second-run movie theater to watch _Night of the Living Dead_. It’s the kind of film he would have liked. No, it’s the kind of film he likes.

            It’s horrible to watch without Kozzy.

 

11/3/68

 

            Sandy and North come back from grocery shopping to hear Iceman and Tooth talking in the kitchen. Their voices are only slightly raised, but they are tense.

            “What would my mom, my sister think if I just ran away?”

            “They’d think you were alive! That you weren’t a murderer!”

            “I’m not going to kill anyone!”

            “They’re going to brainwash you so you don’t care if you kill anyone!”

            “Tooth, I have to do this. I don’t want to go to Canada, and I don’t want to go to jail. I want to come back and have a life here.”

            “But you might not come back!”

            “Tooth, Iceman. What is going on?” North asks as he and Sandy carry the food in.

            Iceman points to the letter on the table. “I won the fuckin’ lottery.”

            Sandy glances down at it, though he knows what it’s going to say.

 

            ORDER TO REPORT FOR ARMED FORCES PHYSICAL EXAMINATION

 

            “Guess I shouldn’t have dropped out of college.” Iceman leans back the chair he’s sitting in so it balances on two legs. “Of course I could fall and break my neck right here…” North steps behind him so that becomes a much less likely possibility.

            “When?” asks Sandy.

            “I have to leave as soon as possible. Tomorrow or the day after. My permanent address is still at my mom’s house in Pennsylvania and, well, the mail was slow and my appointment—in Pennsylvania—is on the 11th.”

            Tooth keeps running her hands through her hair until it floats around her head like a thundercloud. “This is what I was afraid of and I didn’t even know it.”

            “Hey,” Iceman squeezes her shoulder. “Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe barefooting it for a couple years has given me flat feet.”

 

            All that evening, Tooth takes even more Polaroids than usual.

 

11/5/68

 

            Iceman is gone. Bunny is packing. North has taken the leaf out of the table for dinner that night, but it doesn’t disguise the fact that they are half as many as they were at their happiest.

            “I’m going to re-enroll at Berkeley.” Sandy looks around at the others, as if daring them to challenge him.

            North nods slowly. “You will finish the art degree?”

            “No.” He cuts his food into smaller pieces. “I’m going to switch to business.”

            Bunny glances at North, but North simply says, “Maybe a change will be good. I know about business a little, you know.”

            “I’m going to re-enroll too.”

            “And what will you go into, Tooth?”

            “Physics, maybe. Chemistry. Even biology. I think I’ll have about a semester to decide.”

            At this point, Bunny can’t remain silent. “Tooth—what—why? If you want to make your future more stable, why not start selling more clothes? People love your designs, they know you here in the city, you could make it big! And Sandy—business? You’ve never been interested in anything like that, ever! And you have talent!”

            Sandy glances at Tooth, to have her answer first. “Bunny. I don’t want to make money selling my clothes. That’s not why I make them. I make them because I think they make the world more beautiful. I make them so that those that have them remember that I love them. I hated when I did sell a few pieces. I don’t want owning something I made to become a matter of money.”

            Sandy’s answer is simpler. “I know nothing about business, but that just means I’ll have to devote my full attention to it. I don’t want to have any time to think.”

 

            Berkeley receives applications from Riti Sushmita Kapoor and Alexander M. Somnia for the upcoming spring semester.

 

11/11/68

 

            PASSED EXAM STOP FORT POLK IN 2 DAYS STOP

 

11/15/68

 

            Sandy and Tooth had gone to a nearby park to have a picnic, but neither had felt like eating, neither had felt like talking, and it was just a little too cold. When they get closer to the house, they notice there’s some kind of commotion happening within. A couple of nondescript cars are parked illegally on the street outside, and the door is open.

            Sandy and Tooth look at each other. “North.”

            Sandy starts to run towards the house, but Tooth pulls him back. “We can’t go barging in there! Not until we know what’s happening.”

            “So we loiter on the street while who knows what is happening inside?”

            “We can’t help him if we get arrested too!”

            “What if it’s not the cops?”

            “Who would it be if not the cops?”

            Sandy is about to offer a few ominous guesses when North emerges from the house, flanked by two men in plain, simple coats and suits. They are both significantly shorter than him and the handcuffs they have put on him look like toys. He spots Tooth and Sandy across the street and calls out to them. “Children! Not to worry, is just DEA. Be back soon.”

            Sandy is pretty sure that his and Tooth’s expressions when North says “just DEA” would be comical under any other circumstances.

             The DEA men maneuver North into one of the cars. More nondescript men come out of the house, carrying some of the equipment from the basement. They load it into the other car, and both of them drive away. The door is left open.

            Tooth walks in as if in a trance. Sandy follows, dreading what they’ll find within. Bizarrely, very little seems to have been touched. They knew what they had been looking for. Somehow, the way it looks as if North is just out running an errand makes the knowledge of the real intrusion seem that much more obscene. There is something missing, though…Sandy can’t quite put his finger on it. Suddenly, Tooth shrieks. “They took all my Polaroids that were on the walls! What would they have even wanted them for?! Evidence? Just to fuck with us? Don’t let them have taken the boxes not the boxes not the boxes…” she runs to her room upstairs and lets out a sigh of relief. “They didn’t find these! That means…” Sandy walks in to see her sit down on her bed, holding a shoebox full of pictures. “That means that they were just fucking with us. They don’t care. They just did it because they could. Because we can’t really claim anything against them, can we? They have all the power, and paper’s not worth that much. And the memories? Can’t put a figure on that.”

            Sandy sits next to Tooth on the bed and puts his arm around her. He’s glad he’s put away the unfinished painting of Kozzy, even though no one seems to have come upstairs.

            Tooth leans against him. “Some of the pictures were of Iceman. And now…” Sandy feels her stiffen, and she jumps up. “I hate this, Sandy! I hate it! Why now?! Why everyone?! And now? Now? We can’t stay here anymore, you know! They’ll confiscate it or something. All our memories! Someone must have tipped them off Sandy. But WHY? Everyone loved North! Everyone!”

            “Maybe it was those people I refused to guide,” Sandy says quietly.

            “No! Don’t you start feeling guilty on me Sandy. I just—I guess a lot more people had been learning about North…oh, it doesn’t matter!” She pulls some boxes out of the closet and begins to pack her clothing and other possessions. Even in her anger, she does everything neatly and efficiently, folding the clothes to minimize wrinkles and avoid misshaping. “This is bullshit, Sandy, total bullshit. We don’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve Kozzy’s leaving, Bunny didn’t deserve that visa nonsense, Jack didn’t deserve to get drafted, North didn’t deserve to get arrested, and I don’t deserve to have my life uprooted with no warning. I don’t! We don’t!” She folds one finished box closed, and sinks to the floor next to it, seeming to deflate.

            “I…I’m sick of them taking my people!” Sandy goes to sit on the floor next to her, and she puts her arms around his shoulders. “Don’t you leave Sandy, because I don’t think I could take it.”

            “You think I could?” Sandy says, returning her embrace.

            After several minutes, Tooth gets up, wiping her eyes. “Sandy, do you know North’s real name? It’s the only way we’re going to be able to find out what’s happened to him.

            Sandy nods. “I’m pretty sure it was Nikolai Severov.”

            “Okay. Okay. None of this is okay. Sandy, I’m going to put you in charge of calling the DEA, the police, the FBI—I don’t know. Just keep calling until they tell us about North.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I’m…going to keep packing. I think…I think this might be our last night here—” her voice breaks as she finishes her sentence and she hugs Sandy again. “This can’t be happening!” She says, through sobs. “I want to wake up!”

            _What do you think this is?_ Sandy thinks. _We are waking up now._ He doesn’t know if he believes that. But it is the real world coming for them, isn’t it? _But that would make before not real. And it was. It was. It was._

 

            Tooth runs out of boxes pretty quickly. She starts making large bags, quickly, out of cheaper fabrics, and continues packing.

 

            “Nikolai Severov.” Sandy overpronounces the name again. So far, no one’s been willing to tell him anything. “No, it would have happened today. Six foot eight, Russian, tattoos on his arms, one on the left says приятный and the right says непослушный.” There’s muttering on the other end of the line. The person he’s speaking to says that description sounds vaguely familiar. _Vaguely?_ thinks Sandy. _How many people in the world fit that description?_ “I’m just trying to find out what I should tell his friends and family.” Sandy has no idea whether North has family or not, he realizes.

            Ultimately, all of Sandy’s phone calls prove fruitless. He tells this to an exhausted Tooth, who merely sighs, and joins her in moving the boxes and bags to the red VW bus, which is also North’s and probably also up for confiscation, but they have to assume it won’t happen tonight.

 

            They eat a dinner of leftovers late in the evening. “If we leave, I don’t know how Kozzy could ever find us again.”

            Tooth sighs. “We can deal with that as soon as we figure out how not to be homeless.”

            “I don’t actually think he’s coming back,” Sandy says, very quietly.

            “I’m more afraid that Jack will come back feeling the war was justified than that he’ll be killed,” Tooth says, even more quietly.

 

            Later, after the van is filled and most of everything else is packed away, they sit on the couch, leaning against each other. “We’re going to have to tell Jamie,” Tooth says. “Otherwise he’ll come around on Sunday and…and…just think of him finding this all gone!”

            “We’ll do that tomorrow. After moving everything…wherever we’re going to go. But we should get some sleep now.”

            Neither of them moves. “I don’t want to go up to my empty bed,” Tooth says.

            “I don’t either,” Sandy admits.

            They leave the lights on as they fall asleep curled up on the couch together.

 

            In the middle of the night the door slams open and Tooth and Sandy scramble up in a panic. Why are they coming back now? Are they going to be arrested? How—and then, they recognize the silhouette filling the doorway.

            “NORTH!” They run forward and embrace him.

            “We thought you were gone you were arrested you were going to disappear and no one would tell Sandy anything and why did they let you go what’s going to happen—”

            “Shh, shh.” North smooths down Tooth’s hair. He looks around at the emptied house. “What is going on here? Are we moving?”

            “We thought you weren’t coming back,” Sandy says.

            “I said I would be back soon. Admittedly I am a little late, but...” North sounds utterly baffled as to why they would think he wouldn’t be back shortly after being carted away in handcuffs. Sandy and Tooth’s laughter is just this side of hysterical, but after the past few weeks, they’ll take what they can get.

            “North,” Sandy says, “we thought you were going to be in jail for a long, long time. We saw them with the stuff from the lab! What happened?”

            “Ah, both of you come sit down with me. Has been very long day.” They all move back over to the couch. “Now, where to begin. Not going to be very good story. Can only give short version. So, turns out not just DEA, but CIA as well who are showing up today.” North shrugs. “I should have not signed my real name for the house. But very shoddy.  I have been here four years and no one has blinked twice till today. They followed my records from before, and DEA wants to arrest me for the acid. But CIA is investigating other records, and they find my other names. If those names are me, changes game. That is why I am late. They waste my time asking me details about St. Petersburg, Sevastopol, Krakow, Vienna, Budapest—okay maybe I had to detail that story more for them because they did not know about sword part after radio broke, and was very exciting—but in the end they are sure I am I, and, to make long story short, I have legitimate job now! But I am not allowed to make the acid any more.”

            Tooth laughs a little. “I think that story could be made just a little longer. What’s your job?”

            North shakes his head. “Not for telling now. For telling later. Maybe much later. But we are not having to move.”

            “Well…alright.” Tooth leans against North and puts one of his huge arms around her shoulders.

            “I guess that’s what matters,” Sandy says, mirroring Tooth’s action.

            “You two were really worried, da?” North says, gently patting their shoulders.

            “DA,” they both answer.

 

            The next morning they are all stiff from sleeping on the couch and packing or sitting on a small plastic interrogation room chair the day before, but they don’t mind. Unpacking is much more fun, and North takes the opportunity to get them to actually organize the upstairs kitchen.

 

12/21/68

 

            The Bennett family is hosting the Christmas party for their extended family the Saturday before Christmas.

            Sophie feels like she’s going to go crazy if another person asks her if she has a boyfriend yet, and is considering making up a fake lost love modeled on Bunny—which _could_ have been true it he hadn’t been all “talk to me when you’re older”—but she knows her mom wouldn’t realize she was being sarcastic and would flip out and revoke all the privileges she had slowly and painfully regained since last year. She makes a disgusted face. Jamie hadn’t gotten in nearly as much trouble! And it had been his idea too! It wasn’t fair!

She flops on her bed, wondering if she could pretend to have horrible cramps for the rest of the party. No, she had used that excuse for something last week. Oh, wait, she had been forced to try some of Aunt Cheryl’s “Festive Jell-o Salad”. She could say she was feeling sick from that. What kind of a lunatic thought maraschino cherries, radishes, pimentos, and cucumber slices should all be suspended in green jell-o shaped like a Christmas tree anyway? And if she got Jamie to tell her mom, she’d be more sympathetic. Unless Jamie was in one of his commie moods. But still. In any case, step one was “find Jamie”.

She opens the door of her room and step one is done. Jamie is standing outside, his hand raised to knock. He jumps back. “Geez, Soph, I almost used your nose for a door knocker. Have you been up here this whole time? Mom sent me looking for you—they’re all talking about you downstairs.”

Sophie rolls her eyes. “I wish you had popped me in the nose. Then I would have a real excuse to stay up here. Jamie, can you tell them I’m feeling sick from Aunt Cheryl’s salad? And ugh, why can’t Diane get knocked up or something? Then they could have someone new to harp on.”

“First of all, everyone else has been eating the salad and they’re fine—”

“Maybe they’re secretly throwing it away. I know Uncle Matt did.”

“And second of all that’s not the point. And regardless of what you want, Diane is decidedly not pregnant and when you’re not down there, I’m the one that gets picked at. Come downstairs out of sisterly affection!” He dramatically places his hand over his heart.

Sophie sighs. “Fine. But you’re going to have to argue with me for a while before I go downstairs.”

“But you just agreed!”

“Don’t be a doofus! That’s what you’re going to tell them. What I really want is for you to tell me what’s been going on with our friends. Since Mom and Dad open all the letters from California, I know you haven’t been telling the truth in what you write, and we haven’t had a chance to talk till now.”

Jamie looks down at the floor. “There’s not really much news that’s good with them.”

“So _tell me_. I know you haven’t cut off contact with them like you told Mom and Dad. You lived in the house until you moved to the dorms—that was what you told me you were going to do and I know you did. And if you say there’s no good news, you have to tell me because otherwise I’ll imagine all sorts of terrible things and then I’ll really feel too bad to go downstairs and you can face the microscope treatment all on your own.”

“Okay, okay!” Jamie glances towards the stairs to make sure no one is coming and ducks into Sophie’s room. They sit down cross-legged on the floor, facing each other. “I guess the first big thing that happened was Kozzy had to go back to Massachusetts because his grandpa was dying and then he never came back…”

 

“…and now for this part I want to tell you ahead of time that North is okay…”

Sophie has drawn her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “You need to find a way to write to me Jamie, I don’t like hearing all this at once.”

“Still better than living it.” He is about to continue with his story when they hear exclamations from downstairs. Sophie pushes the door open so they can hear better.

 

“Oooh, how marvelous!”

“Where did you get that? It’s gorgeous!”

“Di, you’re a vision, simply a vision!”

 

“Did they start presents without us?” Sophie wonders.

“I don’t think so. You know Mom and Dad would have made us come down for that dog and pony show.”

            They make their way down the stairs. When they turn the corner landing and are able to see the living room, both of them stop short. Their cousin Diana is modeling a coat. It is an unusual shade of shifting violet-blue, sewn with a pattern of jet beads.

            “Where did you get that?” Sophie asks flatly.

            “Oh, it was the craziest thing! You know how me and my friends have done a skiing trip every year for a few years now? Well this year the weather wasn’t the greatest for actual skiing, so, hah, we ended up staying indoors mostly and, you know, drinking a few more hot toddies than we should have, and on the last night of our trip I think we decided to have a fashion show with all us six girls and I found this when I was cleaning up my room. I was so gone, I have no idea whose it was. And since I was the last one there I couldn’t ask anyone and it’s just so fantastic—well, I’m keeping it till the next ski trip for sure! Doesn’t it look wonderful? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

            “It doesn’t fit,” says Sophie, beginning to scowl.

            “Oh, it’s close enough. I can get it altered for more bust and hip space. Funny thing, I don’t think any of my girlfriends are skinny enough to really pull this off—maybe someone stole it from store mannequin! Wouldn’t that be a gas!”

            Jamie notices that Sophie’s expression is now decidedly not showing the Christmas spirit. “Hey, Sophie, looks like you’re not really feeling well—how about you go upstairs and I’ll bring you a glass of water.”

            Sophie glares at him, but obeys.

 

            “Such a caring brother.”

            “I do hope it wasn’t the ham, we all ate that.”

 

            When he returns with the glass of water, Sophie asks, “Why did you suddenly decide that it was okay for me to be fake sick for this party?”

            “Soph, you looked like you were going to rip Diane a new asshole when she started talking about altering that coat—and yes I recognized it as Kozzy’s.”

            “Why does she have it? Why did one of her friends have it?”

            “How should I know?”

            “Did Kozzy throw it out?! Give it to a junk shop!?”

            “I don’t think he would have done that…”

            “You said yourself he didn’t come back to Sandy. Maybe he doesn’t care about him or any of us anymore.”

            “Soph…”

            “Well I don’t care about him then. But I care about Tooth, and I care about Sandy. It’s a good thing that Diana and Cheryl and Joel are staying tonight. That makes it easier.”

            “Makes _what_ easier?”

            “Duh, Jamie, we’re going to steal the coat. Diana’s not going to chop it up. We’re going to steal it and send it back to Sandy. It’s not hers. And if Kozzy doesn’t want it then Sandy or Tooth should have it and decide what it means.”

            “Soph! Well…okay.” He smiles at her. “I wish you were old enough to really be part of the radical movement.”

 

Spring 1969

 

            Tooth and Sandy move closer to Berkeley when classes start. They think it’s a good idea at first for them to each have their own small apartment. It will be fine. They are even on the same street.

            But they are not used to living alone.

            In the silence of his apartment, Sandy finds himself plagued by dreams of Kozzy and nightmares of everything else. Eventually, he realizes he likes the nightmares better. The worse they are, the better waking life seems, even if, without Kozzy, it doesn’t show any signs of improving. He stopped counting days a while ago. The number was getting too high, and it was starting to make him feel panicky when he thought about it.

            When Tooth shows up at his door late one night neither is surprised that the other is awake. “I can’t sleep, Sandy. I’m so tired and I can’t sleep. Because today there was no telegram, no phone call from Jack’s mom. If I go to sleep, then when I wake up it will be tomorrow, and tomorrow might be when those things happen.”

            “Come on in.” Tooth can’t help but notice that Sandy has left most of his art supplies at North’s house. “Do you want chamomile tea? A shot of whiskey?” Tooth hesitates. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d take the whiskey. Because I want it, and I never drink alone.”

            They sit on the futon with an inch of whiskey each in slightly lopsided mugs that Sandy made when first learning how to use a potter’s wheel. For a little while they sip, not talking. Finally, Sandy speaks. “Tooth, this may seem crazy, but I’m jealous of you.”

            “What’s there to be jealous of?”

            “You know Iceman still loves you. That he’s going to come back as soon as he can—less than two years now.”

            Tooth smiles a very little bit. “I should start a countdown.”

            “Exactly.” In the apartment, the only light comes from the streets outside, glaring through the sheer curtain over the window. “Tooth, I want to talk about Kozzy. I need to. Is that…all right? I mean, you were the one who came here for comfort.”

            “Talk all you want, Sandy. I think…I think I know why you might need to.”

            “I miss him every day, Tooth. Every day. I try to keep myself too busy to think, but I can’t. When I walk to class, Kozzy is not there. When I do dishes, Kozzy is not there. When I go to sleep at night, oh, when I go to sleep at night, Kozzy is not there. And…I don’t think he ever will be again. I really don’t. Maybe I was still holding out hope before, but then, when Jamie and Sophie sent the coat—he wouldn’t have gotten rid of it if he still cared about us, about me. And I think…I think it must have been him that got rid of it. His family…I think they would have burned it. But since it’s still here…either he decided on his own to get rid of it or his family has changed him enough so that he thought getting rid of it was his own idea. Same thing, I guess. And no calls, no letters…if he cared he would have found a way to send something, anything. They’re horrible, but they can’t control everything he does. But…nothing, nothing. I think they’ve won, Tooth. I think they’ve made him into prep-school Pitch, like they wanted.

            “And if he couldn’t fight them back in October, how much could he have really wanted too? No, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want me any more. Doesn’t want us, the house, the Haight…before, Iceman left he suggested going to Massachusetts to get him. I said no then—I couldn’t think of doing anything then. But now…I think he’d just tell me to go away.

            “And the worst thing? The very worst thing, Tooth? I still love him. I love the Kozzy I said goodbye to, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving him. I can’t imagine wanting anyone else.

            “If I had to do it all again, even knowing this was how it would end, I would. And now I’ll love him to my dying day. I just…I just wish he was here while I did that.”

            Tooth curls up next to Sandy. _If I knew this was how you two were going to end, I wouldn’t have even let you see him_. Yet even as she thinks this, she knows it’s a lie. They had all loved Kozzy. He was part of them. So no, she can’t hate Kozzy, even if she wants to. She just hates how his leaving showed them that summer was over, and that the winter could be very, very long.

 

            More often than not, after that night, either Tooth goes over to Sandy’s place to sleep, or Sandy goes over to hers. They are without their lovers, but they can at least take comfort in their friends. Other people in the neighborhood, other students, begin to assume they are a romantic couple. They don’t correct them. Frankly, it makes things easier, and frankly, the truth would take too long to explain.

 

7/20/69

 

            Sandy, Tooth, and Jamie are all over at North’s house on Sunday, as usual. However, today they have come over for lunch instead of dinner. North has the only TV out of all of them, and there’s something they absolutely have to watch today.

 

Sandy tries to care about the moon landing.

He tries, but he fails.

Can moon dust tell him why his lover did not return?

Can the Sea of Tranquility tell him why this summer feels so much colder than the last?

Can the lesser gravity make it easier for him to move with his heavy heart?

 

He knows he should remember this moment.

This is what those too young to remember these days will ask about, years hence.

Why ask him, though?

He is just one of millions, watching a rounded rectangle of black and white.

They should ask him about the things he was there for.

Golden summer nights of melting music and perfect love and long legs around his waist and slim fingers tracing light on his chest and a mouth that tastes like coffee and paprika—

Ask him about that.

Don’t ask him about the moon.

There are no answers there.

 

Summer 1969

 

            “It’s called Stockholm Syndrome, Kosmotis. You should feel glad that you’ve managed to process it as well as you have so far. We realize your sympathy with your captor was very strong. But the sooner you acknowledge it, the sooner you’ll be cured, and the sooner you can go home. You can see Stella away from all us doctors and nurses. You want that, don’t you?”

            _I want to get out I want to get out Am I normal yet yet yet? Stella will make me normal I want a normal life with Stella I want a normal life with ~~Sandy~~ At least it will be away from here Away from the drugs Away from the shocks I am normal I am normal Stella wants to take me away from here Maybe they are right Maybe I don’t remember what really happened that first night That whole year? Why did I tell them why why why Don’t think about it don’t let them see Stella wants me out of here Stella is not like my family If…then I wouldn’t have to live in their house anymore It would help me be normal it would it would it would_.

            Kozzy nods.

            “All right. Now, we’re going to go through the whole sequence of events again, and you’re going to repeat them back. This may be painful, but you must face what happened to you.”

            He nods again.

            “In the spring of 1967, you, in a misguided attempt to treat your own psychiatric disorder, took LSD from a commune of ‘hippies’ in San Francisco, California.

            “They gave you the LSD in a non-clinical, uncontrolled setting, before you had a chance to properly prepare for that sort of treatment.

           

            _~~If you’re ready, I can give you the blotter now. If not, we can wait more. Talk more.~~_

 

            “In short, you were drugged.

 

            _~~I’m ready.~~_

 

            “One of the hippies there, a man, then raped you.

 

            _~~Warm hands and soft mouth and sleepy golden-brown eyes and smooth thighs and curling toes and bitten lips and whispers Just like that Kozzy Just like that~~_

 

            “In order to keep you from leaving, you were plied with more drugs until you were addicted. It was only your admirable strength of feeling towards your family that led you to break free to attend your grandfather’s funeral.

 

            _~~Fuck you you killed my horse~~_

            “It was then that we realized the problem and were able to intervene and give you proper treatment.

 

            _~~Where are my pictures?~~_ ~~~~

            “Now. Repeat.”

 

December 1969

 

            “And now, a new song from the Rolling Stones new album, _Let It Bleed_ —maybe you’ve heard the single before, but here it is again, very fitting I have to say, after what happened at Altamont—the times they _are_ a-changin’ my friends, and the Stones know it. But we’ll change with ‘em, so don’t touch that dial! Now, without further ado, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.

 

_I saw her today at the reception_  
A glass of wine in her hand   
I knew she was gonna meet her connection   
At her feet was a footloose man…

 

Spring 1970

 

            Stella is overjoyed. She is beautiful, Koz is handsome, handsome and cured, and oh, it is so much better than her debutante ball.

            Mrs. Kosmotis Pitchiner. Not just for stationery hidden in novels now. This is everything she’s ever wanted.

 

December 1970

 

            “Tooth! Summa cum laude! Are you going to walk in the ceremony in the spring?”

            “Oh—yes! My parents will want to see, and it will be a nice break from studying for the DAT.”

            “Parents, parents—I want to see! I will cheer very loud.”

 

11/11/71

 

OFFICIALLY DISCHARGED STOP SEEING MOM AND SIS STOP BACK TO YOU BY 15TH STOP LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU STOP TELEGRAPH OPERATOR LAUGHING AT ME STOP SEE YOU SOON STOP

 

            Tooth looks like she could fly. Sandy has to smile. If he cannot have the joy of Kozzy with him, then at least he will share in the joy of his friends.

            It’s something he’s realized as time has passed. He still has joy within him. It’s tempered with pain now, true, but, unbelievably, he still has comfort to give. His hurt is deep, but that does not mean he cannot help alleviate those of others. He finally understood this when he started taking classes to become a massage therapist in addition to the business degree. Much has been taken from him, but just as he can’t stop loving Kozzy, he can’t stop giving either.

            Anyway, it turns out he’s good at it. And the sore arms are worth the smiles.

 

December 71

 

            Sandy graduates from both schools. He invites his parents to come to San Francisco for Christmas, and they do. North has to put the leaf back in the table. It is not the same, and there should be not enough space instead of just a little too much, but it is still good. But then, Christmas with North always is. Sandy thinks maybe that should be his job instead of whatever he’s doing now—he suspects espionage, but electronic maybe? North is far too conspicuous otherwise. But then, that doesn’t matter now. He’s got to figure out how to talk his dad out of getting into a drinking contest with North. If only Jack wasn’t _encouraging_ them both…

 

1973

 

            “It’s small now, sure, but I think it’s in a good location.”

            “Sandy, this is amazing!” Tooth snaps a Polaroid of the shiny new _Somnia Spa_ sign.

            Sandy laughs and shakes his head. “Amazing is right. I still feel too young to start anything like this. Oh, by the way, I decided I’m going to finally take your advice. I’m going to sell eight-tracks—maybe cassettes eventually—of me talking. They’ll be available by all the face creams and such out front. I still feel a little weird about this—just me rambling, telling people to fall asleep? ‘I am running my fingers through your hair’ and all that.”

            “They’ll love it Sandy, trust me. Now—may I be your first customer?”

            Sandy adopts a formal bearing. “Of course, miss. May I suggest a hand massage for the young lady?”

            “ _God_ , yes. I need it after all those notes and holding onto all those little tools.”

 

            “Hey, Iceman. Just wanted to call and tell you I got that information you wanted.”

            “Yes! Good, just let me find a piece of paper…got it! Shoot.”

            “Tooth’s ring size is a five. You let me know when I can reveal my part in the subterfuge, okay?”

            “Just listen for the squeal of excitement—the whole city’s going to know.”

            “You sure it’ll be excitement? Maybe it’ll be frustration that she didn’t get to design the ring herself.”

            “Way ahead of you Sandy—it is her design. I’m having it make from a drawing I found in one of her notebooks.”

 

Spring 1975

 

            “Everyone, feast your eyes on Riti Sushmita Kapoor, DDS!”

            Iceman, Sandy, North, Jamie, and Sophie all clap and cheer. “Should we call Bunny?”

            “What time is it in Australia?” asks Jamie.

            “Who cares! This is exciting!” North picks up the telephone and starts dialing.

 

7/19/1975

 

            “And now, for the first time,” says the announcer at the banquet hall, “I have the unequaled pleasure of introducing to you Mr. and Dr. Frost!”

 

            Bunny stands at the head table—he got a tourist visa to be the best man, but they’re not going to get him to leave this time. His pigtails are gone, and he’s starting to go gray already, and good Lord he looks strange in a suit, but he’s finally back.

            He raises his glass for the toast. “Now, when Jack—or Iceman, as some of us know him—asked me to be his best man, to make this toast, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So he told me—‘Say something with a little humor, a little bit of affection, maybe your most vivid memory of Tooth and me’—yeah, I know, we’ll see if he ever calls his lovely wife Riti—and I thought not too long and suddenly I had it! The perfect memory of Tooth and Iceman. There would be humor in the story, loads of affection, and I tell you what, it’s definitely still vivid—” Bunny turns from the hall to wink at Iceman and Tooth. All the color has drained from Iceman’s face, and Sandy sees Tooth silently mouth “NO” at Bunny.

            “But then I realized they wouldn’t want me to tell that story. And since nothing else can really compare, I’m just going to leave it at this: For the most loving, generous, and creative couple I have ever known: May you live a long, happy life together, and may all your hopes and dreams be fulfilled. I love you both.”

            North leans over to speak to Sandy. “So that _did_ happen. I thought so, but did not want to bring up.”

            Sandy bites his lip to keep from laughing.

 

9/13/81

 

            Sandy’s phone rings at 4:57 am. He scrambles for it, disoriented. Who would be calling him at this hour?

            “Hello?” He says, yawning.

            “IT’S A GIRL!” Jack’s voice seems incredibly loud. Sandy smiles as he listens to him give the rest of the information, while holding the phone slightly away from his ear. “Six pounds, eight ounces, twenty-two and a half inches long, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, she looks just like Tooth, she even has a full head of hair already—you should come see her! She’s astounding. Her fingers and toes are so tiny I can’t even—oh, gotta go, uh, North is here—oh yeah how could I forget, we took his suggestion for the name, Natasha—and he’s trying to get Tooth in on a celebratory toast but apparently you aren’t allowed to bring vodka in the hospital—”

 

2/7/84-2/8/84

 

            When Sandy picks up the phone and he hears his mom’s voice, he almost feels like he knows what she’s going to say before she says it. But then again, maybe he would have imagined it even if she was calling for some other reason. Maybe it’s just something that all children of their parents’ later years begin to imagine when they get certain calls.

            He flies out to Albuquerque the next day. In the rented car, the drive to Abiquiu is breathtaking. How is he supposed to feel about that? Should he be noticing beauty at this time? Is it wrong to want to be distracted from his grief for a little while? He’s angry that this was so sudden. He’s glad his dad didn’t linger. At least he was in the mountains he loved when he went. But seventy-seven isn’t that old! “I’m too _young_ for this!” Sandy says as he hits the steering wheel of the car.

           

            Selene Somnia watches her son sip rosehip tea as he sits across from her at the kitchen table. They’re both using mugs he made, years ago. They are sturdy, symmetrical, and will still work to bring warmth and comfort to those around them, despite their chips and cracks.

            “How did it happen?”

            Selene sighs. Not because Sandy is asking, but because she knows she’s going to have to repeat this story again and again over the next few days. Friends and family will want to know more than the cause of death. She doesn’t feel like telling them. Can’t death be a private thing? “He got up with the sunrise, like he normally does. He told me years ago he didn’t want to miss any—that the seeming newness of the world would just about blow him away every morning. Well, you know I’ve always pled for sunsets. So, like normal, he kissed me before going outside—” Selene presses her hand to her mouth and closes her eyes for a long moment. “When I came downstairs a few hours later, I made some tea for both of us before going outside. The sunlight was streaming in, it looked like it was the beginning of the warm spell the weatherman promised—I think I even sang a little as the water was boiling. But when I went to the porch…his body was in that old Adirondack chair, but my Theo was gone.

            “The paramedics said it was a heart attack. I guess…I guess the red of the sun and the huge blue sky were just too much for him that day.”

            “He never was one to close off his heart from anything.”

            “It’s a family trait.” Selene reaches out and squeezes Sandy’s hand, then, hanging her head, she sighs again. “Your father and I had fifty-one years together, and I suppose some people might think that’s a long time. And the wedding vows do say ‘till death do us part’…but Sandy, I really wanted forever.”

            And though the pain of losing his father cuts deep for him too, at that moment a selfish little thought yells, _Fifty-one years is a long time to someone who only had eighteen months!_

 

6/22/85

 

            Sandy is back in New Mexico again, though on this day he thinks he’s probably not going to be staying much longer. Over the past seventeen months he’s been visiting his mom almost monthly, though for the last two visits he hasn’t gone to Abiquiu, but rather a hospice in Santa Fe.

            It’s close to the summer solstice, so Selene has had to make herself stay up later than usual to see the sunset. She smiles once it’s dark and Sandy goes to turn on the lights. “Maybe it’s not the best I’ve seen,” she says, “but I’ll pretend that it is.” She’s sitting in a bed facing the westward window Sandy insisted her room have.

            Sandy sits next to her in a chair that’s almost comfortable enough to get a good night’s sleep in. “Surely there’ll be other contenders?” Calm voice. Calm. No one can know when, right?

            His mom takes a long, slow breath. “I’m so proud of you, Sandy. Your own business, doing something that makes people feel better…and you create such beautiful things…but Sandy, are you happy?”

            “As happy as I could be. I have wonderful friends, I like my job…”

            “As happy as you could be…with everything that’s happened, that’s what you mean. I’ve seen that picture of you and your friends on your steps. The world’s not like that anymore. I wish you all could have had your world.”

            “It’s…it’s not _so_ bad, mom.”

            “But you still miss him.”

            “Aren’t I too old for that?”

            “No…you can’t stop yourself from hoping he’ll come back. That it was all some horrible mistake. You’ve just stopped talking about it…but your momma knows.” She looks up at the ceiling. “I know it now more than ever. You’ve been so strong, Sandy. I hope that you do find him, if that’s what you really want. I hope he hasn’t changed…your dad and I never seemed to change to each other…always surprised we weren’t those kids in their twenties when we saw ourselves in pictures. Oh, Sandy, please don’t think me weak for lasting barely a year without Theo. I know I’m not dying of anything…I’m just dying.”

            Sandy takes her hand. “I’d never think you were weak, mom. I love you.”

            “I love you too, Sandy.”

            They sit in silence for a while, in a pool of golden lamplight. Selene blinks slower and slower. Finally, she focuses on Sandy once more. “I’ll put in a good word for you, Sand-man.” She closes her eyes and breathes slowly, deeply. Sandy keeps vigil until she dreams. Until she stops dreaming. He keeps vigil until she stops breathing.

            _I’m still too young for this_.

 

3/4/86

 

            _You would be thirty-nine today_.

            It is a dull evening, the temperature dropping below freezing once more. Kozzy allows himself to think, as he has been allowing himself to think more and more lately, that it would be warmer in San Francisco. That he wants to go back. That Sandy—no. No one would wait this long for him. But it would still be warmer in San Francisco.

            He pours himself two fingers of scotch and stares through his reflection at the black nothing outside the window.

            No one can send him back to the asylum now. Strictly, they couldn’t before, but he didn’t know their tricks then. Now he does. He can beat them at their own game. _The only way to win is to quit playing_. But he has duties, and he made promises. He will discharge his duties, and address the promises for what they are worth. And then he will finally stop lying. He will clear away all the lies they told him when he was locked away, and prove that he has done so. It took so long to do so in his heart and mind. Now it is time to show that that is done.

            “Is that scotch, Koz? Pour me one, will you?”

            He leaves the window and does so. None of this is Stella’s fault, and he’s a little afraid of how this conversation is going to go. He doesn’t know what she’s like when she’s not getting everything she’s been told she should want.

            “Stella.” He hands her the glass. “I’m not sure if I would rather this be a surprise or something you’ve been expecting, but I’m going to get straight to the point. I want a divorce.”

            “What? What?!” Stella feels panic rising, feels her voice getting higher. She closes her eyes, swallows, and takes a deep breath. “Well Koz, just to clarify, this certainly is a goddamned surprise. I thought we were happy. I thought we were fine. Do you have an explanation for this sudden desire?”

            “It’s not a sudden desire. I’ve just finally gotten the courage to express it.”

            Stella gulps her drink and pours herself another one. “I’m still waiting for an explanation.”

            “I don’t love you the way I should. When we were first married I wanted to, and I tried, but I never could.”

            “You hid it. Very well.”

            Kozzy gives a bitter laugh. “Didn’t you realize you were marrying a Pitchiner?”

            “Damnit, I thought we were normal!”

            He gestures with the hand holding his glass at the quietly opulent lounge, meaning to encompass the whole huge house. “Normal? None of this is normal! None of this would be normal even if I wasn’t—”

            Stella sets her glass down with a loud clunk on a mahogany side table and folds her arms. “Finish the sentence, Koz.”

            “Gay, Stella. Gay. Surely you heard the rumors? What I was doing in the sixties? Why I was really in the loony bin?”

            “They said you were cured!”

            “Cured!” Kozzy can tell that his smile is more like a baring of teeth. “The first one of their lies that I was able to scrape off my brain was that there was anything to cure!”

            “I don’t believe you. You’re delusional. You _were_ cured. We have a daughter! We could have had more children!”

            “I—oh, if you hadn’t been such a good girl, Stella!”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

            “You’ve never been in a relationship with someone who loves you totally and completely, the way he should. When you find out—and that’s partly why we should divorce! I’m not doing this out of malice. I will be forever grateful that you wanted to get me out of the asylum as soon as possible. That you gave me a reason to leave my parents’ house. You are my friend, Stella, and the mother of my daughter. But I cannot be your husband any more.”

            “Right, Koz. I don’t think I’m going to be calling you my friend anytime soon. But if you’ve wanted this for so long, WHY did you keep up this, this FARCE?!”

            “I did it for Sara.”

            “Are you _shitting me_? That ‘staying together for the children’ thing is so overdone!”

            “I’m not finished! I needed to protect her from my parents and the rest of my family. I knew what they had done to me. I didn’t want her to be made into Miss Pitchiner. It’s hard to shake off something like that if they get their claws in you early. I wanted to make sure she had a chance to make her own choices. I think she’s old enough to do that now. She’s not going to start changing herself just because of the things her grandmother says.”

            Stella sinks into a chair. “Unbelievable. I don’t think us divorcing is going to keep her free of family baggage.”

            “I didn’t say she would be. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t unduly influenced by people who valued almost everything above their son’s happiness. Who shot his horse. Who had him _involuntarily committed_ and worked to convince him of the most terrible things about the people who truly loved him. And those are the things I can name! There was so much else—it never sounds as bad to another person! And I worried I was crazy—that all those things weren’t a big deal—just trust me, Stella. Sara needed protection from her grandparents.” His brittle laugh is on the edge of breaking. “Did you think I was just being nice when I said we could always visit your family on the holidays?”

            “You should have told me.”

            “Eventually you get better at keeping secrets than telling them.”

            “Yeah, well, any more secrets you need to tell—oh God. Is there anything I have to…worry about?”

            “Are you asking me if I’m sick? No chance of that Stella. I’m sure it’ll please you to know I have been, and I intend to be, faithful to our marriage vows until the marriage is dissolved.”

            Stella stands up. “Fine. And it does. A little. But I’m going to fight this, Koz, you wait and see! You said you were mine once, and you’ve been mine. I don’t like giving up things that are mine! Just you wait, Koz. At the end of the day, you’re going to understand that I’m a Pitchiner too!”

            “Fine. If that’s what you want. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go look up a lawyer who’s not related to either of us.”

            After he leaves, she runs her hand over her face. “What did we do to deserve this?” she whispers.

 

7/1/86

 

            “Hi North, it’s Sandy.”

            “Sandy! What is the news with you?”

            “I went to Andrew’s funeral today.” There is silence for a moment on the other end of the line.

            “You want to talk about Brandt?”

            “No…I mean…there weren’t that many people there. And his family was trying to pretend that he died of something else. And…I didn’t like him, North. At all. Not after that one night. But he was a human being and he didn’t deserve to die like that. He was alone! If I had known…”

            “And give him one last chance to be jerk? I am glad you were not there.”

            “No one should die alone…he didn’t deserve that joke of a funeral either.”

            “Sandy…is not your job to make everything right.”

            “I know…I know…his funeral was just the worst I’ve been to all year.”

 

9/26/87

 

            “Hello, thank you for calling Somnia Spa. This is Gabrielle speaking.”

            “Hi Gaby can you get Sandy RIGHT AWAY and tell him it’s Jack?”

            “Yeah, yeah, one second.” The young woman with short, dark hair gets up and walks past the open salon floor, through the hallway lined with the doors that led to the rooms that held the massage tables, and knocks on a door at the back. In a moment it opens.

            “Hi Gaby. Is this an emergency? Because technically this is my day off and I am recording in here…”

            “Okay, for one thing you never take a day off ever, and for another thing I think it is an emergency, that has nothing to do with the spa. Jack is on the phone and isn’t he the one whose wife visited recently and was, like, sooooo pregnant—”

            Sandy runs through the hallway and grabs the phone at the front desk. “Jack?”

            “Oh thank goodness. Tooth needs to get to the hospital pretty soon—”

            “I want to be at the hospital already!” Sandy hears in the distance.

            “Anyway, would you mind taking Tasha for the day—or until we get back?”

            “I’M GOING TO HAVE A SISTER!”

            “Agh, Tasha, I’m your daddy, not a jungle gym!”

            “Who are you talking to?”

            “Uncle Sandy. Um, okay, Sandy, I know Tasha’s kind of a handful, but that’s why I’m asking this favor because—whoa, that’s MY arm—I have had calmer days when I was literally being shot at—”

            “I want to talk to Uncle Sandy! Give me the phooooooooooone!”

            “Jack, they say the second labor is always faster!”

            “I’ll be there in ten, Iceman.”

 

            “SANDY!” He’s knelt down and leaning forward slightly, in preparation for when the six-year-old whirlwind in a sparkly blue and green princess dress launches herself at him at full speed for a hug. “I haven’t seen you in _forever_!” She takes advantage of his lowered posture to try and get herself into position for a piggyback ride.

            “Peanut, what are you talking about? I just saw you last week at North’s, remember?”

            “A week _is_ forever!” She yanks on his hair to steady herself, and Sandy swiftly removes her from his back and sets her on the sidewalk in front of him.

            “Please don’t pull on my hair Tasha. It hurts.”

            She looks shamefaced for a second. “I’m sorry…but I’m just so EXCITED! I’M GETTING A SISTER I’M GETTING A SISTER I’M GETTING A SISTER!” She starts running in circles around Sandy and he can only shake his head in amazement. Should he just take her to the park and let her go until she falls down? No, she’s not a puppy. Then again…

            “Yes, you’re getting a sister. But not for a little while yet. First we get to hang out. What do—you want—to do—today?” He asks the blur as she passes in front of him.

            “I don’t know!” She jumps away into the Frost’s yard and starts spinning in circles, arms out. After a little while, she collapses, laughing, looking up at the sky. Sandy walks over and lies down on the grass next to her.

            “You want to spin the whole time?”

            “I like spinning because when I stop the world still goes in allllll directions and it feels like someplace different!”

            Sandy laughs. “You should tell your mommy and daddy that.”

            “I did! They said to say it to you and that you would laugh but I don’t understand why.”

            “Don’t worry about it, Peanut. Now, we could go to the park or—”

            “Can we go to the spa? Can Jeannie paint my nails and can Sammy make my hair all pretty and can you read me a story and at the end can I be a princess? Can we play My Little Ponies? Can we get ice cream? Can we visit North and he can teach me how to make fireworks in my Easybake oven like he promised?”

            “Aw, Peanut, you remember he said you have to be as tall as me before you can do that. But we can go get ice cream.”

            “Okaaaaaay. No! I remember what I wanted to do! I want to go to the movies!”

            “What movie do you want to see?”

            “The one with the priiiinceeeeeesssss.”

            “Oh, okay. Sounds good! You know, I think I want to see that one too.” That is, if she was talking about _The Princess Bride_ , like he’s guessing.

 

            Thankfully, there was a showing of the movie starting in about half an hour. Tasha was a little calmer now, after the car ride, but Sandy knows that the half hour could change that completely. He decides that they’ll wait outside for most of that time, so if she needed to be loud or run around for a bit it wouldn’t bother too many other people. It turns out this is a wise choice, as Sandy is treated to a Doppler-effect enhanced retelling of the events of Tasha’s week. Apparently, she had gotten in trouble in her kindergarten class for spilling a pot of glitter on the kids that sat at her table. Which might have been an accident, might have been on purpose, or she might have been framed. She doesn’t seem to feel too concerned with choosing a consistent story.

            Ten minutes before the movie starts, Sandy squats down so that their faces are level. “Okay, Tasha, we’re going to go into the movie now. And you’re going to have to be quiet. Do you think you can do that on your own?”

            “I don’t know,” she says, fidgeting.

            “That’s all right, I’ll help you. I’ll do a quiet spell.”

            “Oooooh.”

            “You remember that, don’t you. Okay. I’m starting the spell.” He taps a finger gently on her nose. “Now I count to four, and you breathe in, with your tummy. One…two…three…four…And out: One…two…three…four. Again, in...all your fidgets are going away…out…you’re breathing out all the breath you use for talking…in…you’re getting ready to be quiet…out…now you are quiet. So says the Sandman, and the spell is done.” He taps her on the nose again.

            Tasha yawns. “You talk like you talk on the tapes my mommy sometimes listens to.”

            “Well, you know, a lot of people need quiet spells. Let’s go into the theater now.”

 

 

            “Hear this now: I will always come for you.”

            “But how can you be sure?”

            “This is true love. You think this happens every day?”

           

***

 

            “Look, I don’t care what I watch, I just want something to distract me.”

            “ _Princess Bride_ starts in five.”

            “As long as there aren’t any lawyers in it. I’ve had an especially trying week.”

 

 

“Despite Humperdink’s assurance that she would grow to love him, the only joy she found was in her daily ride.”

 

***

 

“Life is pain, highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

 

***

 

            “Move? You’re alive. If you want I can fly.”

 

***

 

“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”

 

***

 

            “Your true love lives! And you marry another!”

 

***

 

            _It’s not an electroshock machine it’s not an electroshock machine it’s not an electroshock machine._   “This being our first try, I’ll use the lowest setting.”

 

***

 

            “You truly love each other, and so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the storybooks say. And so I think no man in century will suffer as greatly as you will.”

 

***

 

            “Now mostly dead, is slightly alive.”

 

***

 

            “Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.”

 

***

 

            Tasha is totally dazzled by the movie. “…and the eels and the bride dress and the sand and the sword fight like this!” She lunges and jabs with an imaginary weapon. “I am not left-handed!”  She doesn’t stop talking or swashbuckling for the whole walk over to a nearby ice cream shop.

           

            Over a dish of cookie dough ice cream, she suddenly looks up at Sandy, who has been content to let her talk. Speaking with the utmost gravity, she says, “I knew that Westley and Buttercup were going to live happily ever after. I knew it the whoooooole time.”

 

            Later, back at Sandy’s house, as Tasha seems to be doing her best to break Sandy’s air mattress and he’s trying to decide how best to convince her to change out of her princess dress and into her pajamas, the phone rings and those plans are scrapped in favor of going to meet Theresa. Tasha makes up songs about her as they drive over, and Sandy joins in as soon as he can manage to catch the words.

 

11/10/89

 

            One Friday evening, Sandy is at home, working on a painting. It’s an abstract piece, full of energetic gold and black forms flowing into each other. He has too many paintings like this already. He’s deciding whether or not he’s going to paint over it when he decides he’s done when the phone rings.

“Hello Sandy, it is North.”

            “Hi North, what’s up?”

            “Is big day! I have decided to quit my job. I am now retired, done, enough is enough. They can do things on their own now.”

            “Congratulations! Can you tell me who ‘they’ and ‘things’ are now?”

            “Eh…no. Not yet. Maybe later. But it does not matter, have better stories from before I can tell now.”

            “All right, all right. But I have to ask—does this decision have anything to do with the news lately?”

            “Sandy, my friend, what a strange question to ask a simple retired chemist! But I want to say I am calling to let you know that this Sunday the get together is going to be big deal! I have lots more time now, will be able to pester everyone more to make it home again. Everyone back together!”

            “Sounds great, North. I’ll definitely be there. See you soon.”

            _Almost everyone_.

11/20/89

 

            No, he’s not going to wait until after the holidays to sign these last forms. Not when Stella’s lawyer has finally seemed to run out of delaying tactics.

            Of course he’ll still be here for Sara’s winter break. But that form is getting signed.

            The pen is heavy and writes perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens in Budapest stays in Budapest.
> 
> Yes, I did mean to imply a Tooth/Bunny/Jack threesome happened at one time.
> 
> Thought about adding a Babytooth character tag, but that would be spoiling things, wouldn't it?
> 
> The M stands for Morpheus. It's totally embarrassing. For a while only Tooth knew.
> 
> What Stella worried about and what Andrew died of are the same disease, and the reason that Sandy alludes to going to a lot of funerals.
> 
> As for the newsworthy events that totally had nothing to do with North's retirement, they might have had to do with a certain well-known wall, but then again they might not.


	4. Songs of Faith and Devotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9/30/93-10/3/93
> 
> Sandy and Kozzy meet again. 
> 
> Also, there's a coffee shop and things almost get meta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was looking for album titles to steal for this chapter title, "Songs of Faith and Devotion" by Depeche Mode obviously stuck out to me, but then when I listened to it, it was basically a blacksand mix (or so I felt), even more so than the excerpts I quoted make it out to be. The entire thing is on youtube in one video, so I recommend checking it out.

9/30/93

 

            “It’s really only a small thing,” Bunny says, sipping at the glass of homebrewed ale North has just brought him. “Me and two other artists. Some little local band with a violinist. We hang out in the coffee shop for a while and a bunch of kids in flannel don’t buy any of our pieces. Thing is though, I’m surprised they found me. Susan and Terry too. Was it ‘unearth the old hippies month’ or something?”

            “Is not small thing.” North settles into another chair at the kitchen table. “I move weekly dinner for that show.”

            “And it’s played havoc with all our schedules.”

            “I’m so bummed Maria couldn’t make it.” Tooth rests her chin on her hand. “She was going to start teaching me Krav Maga.”

            “She was going to come tonight.” Bunny smiles. “But apparently someone on her team found out that the car company was deliberately concealing a safety issue and well, she’s got the scent of blood now. I’m so glad she’s on the side of the public.”

            “I never thought I’d end up liking a lawyer so much.”

            Bunny laughs. “Me neither! But that’s life, I suppose.”

            “Hey North, speaking of people who should be here, how’s progress on getting Sophie and Jamie to come down for Christmas?”

            North smiles and taps the side of his nose. “They say they are still thinking. Have to ask Pippa, have to ask Thomas. Parents deserve to see Lauren and Emily and Margaret and little Ben. So far to travel. Maybe kids do not want to come. Maybe is not enough room in house. Is all nonsense. They will be here.”

            “Tell Sophie I’ll make Margaret a new costume if she promises to come,” Tooth says.

            “You’d do that anyway, Tooth,” Sandy points out.

            “I _might_ not. Okay, I probably would. I just have so many ideas, and now that Tasha is sort of in that ‘too cool for you’ stage, she won’t let me make anything for her. She wouldn’t even let me volunteer to help make costumes for the school play! And it was _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , too.”

            “Yeah? What part did she have?” asks Bunny.

            “Oh, she helped with the lighting. She did wonderfully.”

            “Is she going to be here for dinner tonight?” Sandy is drinking homebrewed mead. He noticed earlier that there was a lot of that waiting in the cellar—he’ll have to ask North why later.

            “Yes, Jack just had to pick up Resa from her riding lessons, and then he’ll be bringing them both over.” She checks her watch. “Actually, they should both be here by now. I hope nothing’s gone wrong, I mean, they’ve matched Resa with the most docile pony they have, but she wanted to gallop flat out right away—I almost wish she’d had a unicorn phase like Tasha, that really just required storybooks and lots of drawing paper—but the horse rescue is a good place. I’m sure nothing’s wrong.”

            “She’s probably just saying goodbye to all the horses, like you said she did last week.”

            Tooth smiles. “Frankly, I was just glad to find out she hadn’t taken all those sugar cubes to eat for herself.”

            “So North,” Sandy turns to him. “Why’d you switch from beer to mead? Not that I’m complaining—this is really good. But don’t they expect you to sell beer at the farmers’ market?”

            “Ah, well, is pretty casual, you know. Can make changes. Do not really go for having a booming business.”

            “That’s right,” says Bunny. “You go to flirt with all the crunchy-granola women who sell sourdough bread and heirloom tomatoes.” He turns to Tooth and Sandy and speaks in a stage whisper. “It’s scandalous. They’re all too young for him.”

            “Bunny, really, you do me wrong. They have silver hair, I have silver hair, is no ‘too young’ anymore. And I do not flirt with all.”

            “Well you did when I visited you that one time. Trina, Anne, Patricia, Lori, Martha—wait! Martha sold honey!”

            Sandy raises his eyebrows at North, smiling, and raises his glass as in a toast.

            “Ah, Martha.” North sighs, putting his hand over his heart. “My goddess of the bees. She—”

            “—talked you into buying over a hundred pounds of honey over the past few months.”

            “Well I do not want to look like I am visiting her booth for no reason. Anyway, is good to have someone to talk to during the market. Alas! She has a tragic past. Widowed, five years ago! It broke my heart to hear.”

            “Yeah, I don’t think you’re that heartbroken about it,” Bunny says, smirking.

            North looks like he is about to protest, when the doorbell rings. “Door is open!” He calls.

            Jack, Tasha, and Resa enter the kitchen. It’s always startling to Sandy when he sees Jack now (and it is _Jack_ now). His hair has gone totally white already—apparently it’s normal in his family, but it still looks strange. Bunny teases him that it’s from the stress of being a stay-at-home dad for Tasha and Resa.

            “Hey Tooth.” Jack bends down and gives her a quick kiss on the lips.

            “Hey. We were getting worried about you.”

            “Oh, yeah, sorry for being late, everyone. There was an incident at the horse rescue.”

            “Resa almost got stomped,” Tasha says, sitting down next to Sandy. She reaches for his glass. “Is this apple juice? Can I have some?”

            “It’s mead. Honey wine. I think you’re going to have to get something else.”

            “SODA!” she cries, and hurries down the stairs to the basement fridge.

            Tooth rolls her eyes at North. “Would it kill you to buy some diet Coke instead of the regular kind?”

            “Hmm, never know what is going on with those artificial sweeteners, you know.”

            “Yes you do! You’re a chemist! Anyway, Jack, what’s this about Resa almost getting stomped? I assume the real story is slightly more complicated? Resa?”

            Resa looks up at Tooth. “I didn’t almost get _stomped_. I almost got _eaten_.”

            “Aw, sweetie, no, horses don’t eat people. Wait, were there dogs there? Running around loose? That’s not good for anyone! They are going to be hearing from me—”

            “Okay, let me try to explain this better.” Jack lifts the unusually quiet Resa into a chair between him and Tooth. “So, you know how the horse rescue is well, a horse rescue? Since we’ve been going there for lessons, we’ve mostly seen them working with old horses that would otherwise be put down. They don’t want to do anything but meander around a field eating grass all day. Well, they also have a separate stable for those horses they rescue that were going to be put down for reasons other than old age. Namely, that they were totally unmanageable. Problem horses. That stable is totally out of the way of the regular stable, has separate pasture, and _normally_ none of the students would ever go near it. They don’t want a bunch of strange people making the horses nervous.”

            “I was just curious,” Resa says, pouting.

            Jack ruffles her hair. “So instead of the normal amount of riding today, at the end of the lesson Katherine is demonstrating some different gaits to the students, and our little angel apparently got bored with that. I can only imagine she looked very confident as she walked over to the problem horse stable, since no one stopped her until she was actually on the threshold.

            “Then, from what Katherine and Resa told me when I came to pick her up, the guy who is in charge of working with the problem horses rushes at her like some bat out of hell, picks her up so she’s clear of the stable and shuts the door. Then, he leans down so they’re face to face—”

            “He told me the horses in that stable were monsters and would _eat me_. Worse than the ones under my bed,” Resa interrupts.

            “So naturally Resa screams and this sets off the horses in the stable and—well, you’ve heard some of the sounds horses can make. So the guy leaves Resa standing there, freaked out, and goes in to calm them down, leaving Katherine to find Resa out there. They were sitting in the office when I arrived. We had to go through the whole story and Resa is on probation with her lessons and is going to have to be shadowed by an older student now. Never saw the guy who deliberately scared her, though. I mean, I wanted to tell him what I thought of that! Would it have been a disaster for him not to be so abrupt? No. And what kind of asshole tries to associate horses with the monsters under the bed—to a little girl taking riding lessons?! It’s supposed to be fun!”

            “You’re going to be okay, though, right Resa?” Tooth asks.

            She nods. “But I’m never going by _that_ stable again.”

            “Which was probably that guy’s goal,” Jack admits grudgingly.

            Sandy sips his mead as casually as he can. “So give us a description, Resa. Maybe he’ll be around the normal stable when your dad picks you up next time. You can see them duke it out.

            The thought makes Resa smile. “He’s _really_ tall and skinny and he’s got a big nose and he talks like the bad guy who turns into an owl.”

            “Does he have black hair?”

            Resa nods. “But with gray at the sides. How’d you guess? Is it magic? Can you do more magic than quiet spells? Can you teach me?!”

            “Just a guess,” Sandy says. But he can’t help a small smile from beginning to form on his face.

            “Sandy—no.” Jack shakes his head. “There is no way it could be him. I mean—out of all times and places?”

            “Anyway,” Tooth says, “Kosmotis Pitchiner was the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

            “His leaving was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” Sandy corrects her. “But his showing up sure wasn’t.”

            “What are you talking about?” Resa pipes up.

            “Ancient history, honey. Practically the dark ages. Sandy, please don’t. It won’t be him and even if it is…it’s been twenty-five years! It won’t be him. Remember the coat.” Tooth looks at North and Bunny. “Help us out here, guys.”

            Bunny shrugs. “Yeah, it’s unlikely, but…what harm can it do to check? Just a phone call should do it. Ask for the guy’s name and you’ll know. What?” Tooth’s expression is annoyed. “I’m not going to say to give up when Sandy clearly hasn’t.”

            North nods, his expression wary. “Probably okay to check. But be careful, Sandy. Do not let yourself get shot through heart again.”

            “All right then. Come on, Tooth, Iceman. Like you said, it’s probably not him. I see lots of people who aren’t Kozzy every day. I just want to make sure. See if Resa’s a good witness.” He winks at her and she giggles.

 

            After dinner, as they are all leaving to go to their houses, Tasha surprises Sandy by giving him a hug—she’s been somewhat standoffish lately. Her technique is still one to knock him off balance, though now the problem is that she’s not yet familiar with how long her arms and legs are. As she hugs hum, she whispers in his ear, “ _The man in black_.” Sandy gives her an extra squeeze.

“I should have never told you anything. You’re a hopeless romantic, you know.”

She smiles as she lets go. “Hey, I’m almost as tall as you now. North’s going to have to teach me how to make fireworks.”

“You still remember me saying that?”

“It was a memorable day!” She waves at him as she runs over to the minivan with faux-wood panels. “Bye! Mom’ll probably drag me to Bunny’s show, so see you on Sunday!”

 

10/1/93

 

            It would be sensible and easy to make a phone call. But that would be boring. If he’s going to be disappointed, he’s going to be disappointed dramatically, in person. Sandy wonders if this is a mild manifestation of a midlife crisis.

            “Gaby, would you please call my afternoon appointments and let them know that I have to cancel? I’m taking a half day off.”

            “Sure—hey, nothing’s wrong, is it?”

            “Just because I’m taking some time off doesn’t mean something bad is happening.”

            “That’s true, you take time off for births as well as deaths. Seriously though—are you actually taking personal time?”

            “If you think you can keep the spa from burning down without me, then yes. Oh, and please offer free appointments to everyone I have to cancel on, with an extra fifteen minutes added on if they like.”

            “Should I tell them anything if they want to know why you had to cancel?”

            Sandy smiles. “Tell them I went looking for my shadow.”

            “All right,” Gaby says, rolling her eyes. “Hope you find it.”

 

            The horse rescue is a half-hour’s drive from the suburbs where the Somnia Spa’s new location is. On the way, Sandy tries to imagine what he’ll do if Kozzy really is there. He finds it difficult. After all this time, it’s difficult to believe that he’ll be seeing Kozzy again. Maybe he doesn’t actually believe. But if he didn’t, why is he driving out here?

 

            “Hi, I’m Jane.” The woman he finds working in the small office is in her fifties, wearing a light jacket with the rescue’s logo over her t-shirt and jeans. She shakes his hand. “What can I do for you today?”

            “Some friends of mine have their daughter take lessons here,” Sandy begins. “We were talking about this place the other day and they mentioned that you take in problem horses, ones that are difficult to train. I was wondering if you had some sort of sponsoring program for them? I’d like to donate, you see, because when I was younger one of my friends owned a difficult horse—it ended up causing some injuries and his parents had it put down. I thought that was awful, and I’d like to stop it from happening again.”

            Jane shakes her head. “Some people just don’t understand the responsibilities of owning a horse. Well, unfortunately we don’t have a specific sponsoring program in place right now, though now that you mention it, that does seem like a good idea. I’ll let Kosmo know about it—I think he’d like the outreach. Stop lumping the ‘problem horses’ into one group—of course, for him, there are no problem horses. I’ve never seen anything like it. The man’s a natural—are you okay?”

            Sandy nods, though the nod is a lie. He doesn’t trust himself to speak right now. _Who else could it be calm down Kosmo is not that uncommon of a name maybe it’s even Cosmo you just heard it but really who else could it be who else could it be?_

            “Well, I don’t want you to have driven all this way for nothing. How about we go and ask him if we can meet some of the ‘problem horses’? I bet you’ll find one you like and we can start the sponsoring unofficially today.”

 

            They walk over to the secondary stable. “You’d better wait outside,” says Jane. “Just for now. Sorry, we just like to be careful about how they meet new people.”

            Sandy looks around at the complex as he waits for Jane to come back. There are a few horses out in smaller pastures near the stable that look at him warily before going back to their hay. To the left of the stable is a much larger field with a small rise in the center of it. It’s dotted with a few trees, and Sandy can’t see the opposite fence from where he stands. It all seems very peaceful. Unlike his thoughts.

            Jane reemerges from the stable, alone. “He’s not in there, and Onyx—one of the horses—is gone too, so I guess he’s taken her out for a ride. Frankly, though, I can’t imagine _anyone_ taking Onyx for a ride this soon. She only arrived a week ago, and she’s a holy terror! I mean, at least the people that owned her took her here, so I can’t yell at them too much—though I really really want to. They must be in the big pasture. I mean, we call it that, but it’s not that big, so they should have to come by soon. But—Onyx! I swear, sometimes that man has no regard for his own safety. If you ask me—oh, that must be them!”

            Sandy saw them before Jane did. He still can’t be sure that it’s Kozzy on the huge black mare, but he’ll pretend until he’s close enough to be sure. From this distance, they look like one being as Onyx gallops toward the near fence, maybe-Kozzy bent low over her neck. He’s whispering in her ear, and, maddeningly, they get slower as they approach the fence.

            And then—and then—they are close enough for Sandy to see and it is Kozzy, it is, oh and he’s still so beautiful, he hasn’t changed a bit, no that’s not true, well it’s not as though Sandy doesn’t see the lines in his face but those lines should be there but he wishes he could have watched them form year by year and then there would be more smile lines, wouldn’t there? and the gray in his hair just makes him look more handsome and distinguished hmm an older man, kinky, you doofus you’re still older than Kozzy oh God how do I look, you’ll look worse if you faint, breathe Sandy breathe.

            “You crazy bastard,” Jane mutters under her breath. “Bareback? Now you’re just showing off.”

            “Jane!” Kozzy calls, still a little way away, but coming closer every second. “Did you want me for something? Who’s that with you?” He turns toward Sandy, and his expression changes from mildly interested to stunned. He leads Onyx towards the fence almost unconsciously. Her ears twitch back and forth from him to Jane and Sandy.

            “Kosmo, this man wanted to sponsor a problem horse, and I thought that was a good idea, so I was going to ask you if he could meet them, and maybe we could set up a program, you know, for good PR, but then I find you out here, riding Onyx, _bareback_. Have you lost your mind? No one even knew you were doing this! What if something had gone wrong?”

            “Onyx was bored, and she doesn’t like the saddle,” Kozzy says, sounding dazed. He’s still staring at Sandy as if he can’t believe he’s there. “Sandy?”

            “Kozzy.”

            Kozzy closes his eyes and a smile spreads over his face. _Never thought I’d hear you say my name again oh say my name again why are you here how are you here I don’t care you’re here what must you think of me_.

            “Huh.” Jane looks from Kozzy to Sandy and back again. “You two know each other?”

            Kozzy covers his mouth with a hand and nods.

            “Okay. Well, I’m going to go back to the office and get some stuff done.” She turns to Sandy. “I hope you’re still interested in sponsoring a horse.”

            Sandy nods, not taking his eyes off Kozzy. He doesn’t know how this moment is going to end, and he’s not going to give up what might be his real last chance to see Kozzy.

            Onyx, naturally, doesn’t care what’s going on and is starting to get annoyed. “Sandy—Sandy—give me a second. I need to get Onyx settled in her stall and then I’ll be right out. Do not move. Oh God, don’t move. I’ll be ten minutes.”

            For those ten minutes, Sandy paces back and forth. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s Kozzy, it’s really Kozzy! But where was he and what about the coat and who the fuck cares? Oh he missed his voice so much, so much. No, they need to talk. If Kozzy wants to. Will he? Sandy hopes, he hopes, he hopes. He holds out his hands. As he suspected, they’re shaking. Isn’t he too old for this? He doesn’t feel like it.

            And then Kozzy is there, leaving the stable, practically running over to Sandy. Before he has time to think too much, Kozzy pulls him into a fierce, tight embrace, one that Sandy is only too glad to return. Kozzy presses his face into Sandy’s hair and murmurs, “I don’t know how you’re here, and I don’t know who you have to go home to, but I’m glad I could do this just once more.”

            Sandy only holds him tighter. Kozzy suddenly laughs a little, disbelievingly. “Are you sure you want to hang on so tightly? I know I smell like horse.”

            Sandy looks up at Kozzy. “I don’t care.” He lets out a broken sigh and rests his head against Kozzy’s chest. “I don’t care at all. But Kozzy,” he looks up at him again, “what happened to you? Where were you?”

            Kozzy’s face darkens. “It’s a long story.”

            “Yeah, and so’s mine. I’ve got the rest of the afternoon off. Why don’t we—” _Why don’t we go back to my place and fuck like there’s no tomorrow because right now I don’t care if there is?_ “—go get coffee and tell those stories?”

            “Sure, yeah, that sounds good.”

            “There’s no parking at the coffee shop I’m thinking of, and it’s kind of tricky to get to. Is it all right if we take my car?”

            Kozzy nods.

            They make one brief stop before leaving. “Jane, I’m taking the rest of the day off.”

            “Take the weekend, hon.”

 

            The Alternate Universe is a fairly new, and fairly popular coffee shop close to the city. It’s got self-consciously funky and eclectic décor, and attracts a lot of artist and writer types. This is where Bunny’s show is going to be in a couple days.

            Possibly its appeal to artists and writers is why it’s so crowded on a weekday afternoon. When Sandy and Kozzy walk in, the closest thing to an empty table is a two-top pushed against another two-top. A young woman is sitting in one of the seats, a legal pad in front of her covered in large, messy handwriting. She holds a pen in her left hand and taps it against her teeth, looking intently at the propped-open history textbook in front of her. Notes are spread across the rest of the two tables. “Lot of homework?” Sandy asks.

            “Oh! Let me move my stuff! Sorry, I just kind of took over this space. No, it’s not homework. If only! I’d probably have my master’s by now if I spent this much time on my homework. No I’m just—just trying to decide whether someone should have a coke addiction or not. But that’s not important! Sorry! I’ll stop babbling.” She restricts her work to one table and Sandy and Kozzy move the other table away slightly.

            “I’ll save it for you while you get your drinks,” she offers.

            “Thanks.” “Thank you.”

 

            Sandy gets a black coffee, and Kozzy gets a chai tea. For a few moments, they sip their drinks in silence, just looking at each other. Kozzy’s hair is short again, and his face looks sharper and leaner than before. Sandy’s not entirely sure if he’s imagining things or not, but Kozzy’s shoulder’s seem broader. Tooth would be able to tell. Noticing that, it hits Sandy again just how very young they were when they were first together. But that old, sharp face is smiling at him and so the time that made it that way doesn’t seem to matter that much.

            Kozzy finds it astounding how little Sandy has changed. Sure there are a few lines on his face, but overall his skin—what he can see, anyway, seems just as smooth and healthy as it did when they met. Kozzy wants to speculate about the skin he can’t see as well, but what would the point of that be? Surely someone more deserving than he has claimed a place in Sandy’s heart. And yet…how he wants to ignore that the years are piled like boulders between them. If there’s any gray mixed in with the gold of Sandy’s hair, the color and the curls make it invisible to him. He still wears it long—not so long as before, but long enough that Kozzy can pretend it’s not 1993. And there’s something in his eyes that seems so young still, or ageless.

            “It’s twenty-five years to the day,” Sandy says, “since you got the letter asking you to come home.”

            Kozzy shudders.

 

_Maybe there’s a God above_  
But all I’ve ever learned from love  
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you  
It’s not a cry you can hear at night  
It’s not somebody who has seen the light  
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

 

            “Hey Steve!” The girl at the table next to them calls out to the barista. “Change the music, will ya? It’s bringing me down.”

            “It’s a good song!”

            “It’s depressing! Do you want everyone in this legal pad to die?”

            “You never let me read your story, so I’m going to say I don’t care.”

            “Just play something else! Here, I’ve got a record in my bag.”

            “Kim—are you serious?”

            “Depeche Mode, _Songs of Faith and Devotion_.” She gets up and walks over to the turntable behind the counter. “I promise it won’t drive the customers away.”

            “Only employees are supposed to be back here.”

            “Then give me a job!”

            The record starts off with an awful screech, but soon resolves into more recognizable music. Steve keeps the volume low enough so that his customers’ conversations can still continue.

 

_I feel you_  
Your sun it shines  
I feel you  
Within my mind

 

“I don’t know where to begin.” Kozzy drums his fingers on the table. “I underestimated my family. I should have been afraid of them. My uncle, Orion, is a psychiatrist. And I didn’t realize…how much they thought they owned me. They had me involuntarily committed. I was in ‘treatment’ until Christmas 1969. They controlled all my communication with the outside world. Looking back now, it all seems so insane. How could they have done that? How? They kept me drugged, they convinced me of terrible things…I couldn’t write, I couldn’t call. I’m sorry, Sandy. I’ve often thought…I should have known. I should have known what they would do. But the fog, Sandy…when it cleared a little, in the early days, I realized that they had gone through my things. They had taken the polaroid of us under the mistletoe. They took the picture of all of us on the steps. I say they because I can’t really remember…what I do remember, though, is that Miller—she was a nurse—stole the coat Tooth made for me. And I was never able to get it back. I looked her up, too, during the divorce process. She could barely remember taking it! And then she said she had lost it years ago. It’s a good thing that was a phone conversation. When I was released I had nothing left of our summers together.”

Sandy’s coffee mug rattles as he sets it on the table. “I…none of us ever suspected your family would do something like that. I thought…” he looks down. “I believed they had convinced you to stay by ordinary persuasion. And, strange as it may seem, your coat helped convince me of that.”

“What? But it was gone—lost.”

“Not quite,” says Sandy, as he begins to explain.

 

_I would tell you about the things_  
They put me through  
The pain I've been subjected to

 

“They were hard years, Kozzy. I don’t know what we would have done if North really had been taken to jail. Sometimes I’m still not sure how we pulled through. I guess I mean I. Jack came back. Tooth became a dentist—yeah, I know. They got married. Bunny managed to move back in time for their wedding.”

“But what about you? What did you do?”

“Well…I missed you Kozzy. That’s what I did.” He places his hand over Kozzy’s on the table. “I graduated. Business, not art. I became a licensed massage therapist. I have my own spa now…I sell relaxation tapes, CDs now too.”

Kozzy gives a short sigh. “I’m envious of every single person that’s bought one of them.” He sips his drink. “Sandy…I don’t really know how to say this without being blunt. While I was committed, they did such a number on me that I thought my love for you really was a perversion—something abnormal. They made me believe that I wanted to be their version of normal. And as part of that whole scheme…forgive me Sandy…I got married. 1970.” He can’t look at Sandy. “We had a daughter together.” He moves as if to pull his hand away, but Sandy holds on.

“Tell me about her.”

 

_Feel elation_  
High   
To know I can trust this   
Fix of injustice   
Time after time 

 

Kozzy dares to look up. Though there’s some hurt in Sandy’s eyes, there’s no anger, no rejection. And he’s not letting go. “Sara was born in 1971. She was, and is, astonishing. I was determined from the very first to let her grow up and be who she wanted to be. I hope I managed it—I think I did, though now that means she doesn’t talk to me much. So brilliant, so beautiful—and quite within her rights to resent me for the divorce from her mother that began when she was fifteen and dragged on until she had already been away at college for a semester. It was bad, Sandy. Stella and I were awful to each other. You would’ve been horrified by some of the things I said.

“I think she ended up going to DePauw partly to get away from us. And to rebel against the Pitchiner Ivy League expectation. I encouraged her, but that didn’t matter to her. She was so angry…and then—they have this program, at DePauw, where in the month of January all the students go somewhere or take a class—anyway, in the January of her sophomore year, she went on a trip to the Ghost Ranch—” He sees Sandy smile.

“Right near Abiquiu, New Mexico.”

“I thought you’d know it. It changed her. She seemed calmer. More whole somehow. Maybe part of that was that the divorce had finally gone through and I had moved out, so the number of fights had decreased dramatically, but I think a lot of it was the ranch. And when she talked about it after she came back, going on about the sky and the mountains and the red dirt—it made me realize I had to go and try and find you, Sandy. I couldn’t keep living like a hermit, avoiding most people and basically punishing myself. Abiquiu was still out there, and so were you—so I hoped. I wasn’t very efficient about my search though—I’m sorry.

“Well. In any case, she still has some bitterness about the divorce. She graduated last spring, and now she’s doing rainforest conservation work, on a fellowship, in Brazil. She sends brief letters to Stella and me to let us know she’s alive. I’m grateful she does even that. She’s an adult now, and she could cut off contact with us if she wanted to. I wouldn’t blame her. It’s hard to believe—she’s older now than we were when we met. She’s older than we were when I left.”

 

_I would do it all again_  
Lose my way and fall again  
Just so I could call again  
On the mercy in you

Kozzy pauses, looking troubled. “And I’m so glad she’s in the world. But when I think about the whole sequence of events that allowed her to happen—I would undo everything except her.”

“I understand, Kozzy. I hope I can meet her someday.” He smiles that gentle smile Kozzy has missed so much. “Maybe we can invite her to North’s for Christmas.

“What I want to know now, Kozzy, is what you’re doing at the horse rescue. You said you wanted to find me after the divorce was finalized but if I’m doing the math right it’s been a few years—and I had to find you.”

 

_Man will survive_  
The harshest conditions  
And stay alive  
Through difficult decisions  
So make up your mind for me  
Walk the line for me  
If you want my love  
If you want my love

 

“As I said…in the beginning I was punishing myself, somewhat. Then, I moved slowly across the country. I started working with horses again. I kept avoiding people. And I…I longed for you. But I was afraid. I didn’t know where you were. All I could aim for was the city where I had once been happy. I made it to the very edge of the suburbs. And I imagined meeting you, over and over again. But what I couldn’t imagine was you still wanting me. I couldn’t imagine that you hadn’t moved on. Fallen in love with someone more deserving of you than me. You still haven’t clarified that yet, you know. It’s making me nervous. Is there someone who’s going to be angry you spent all this time talking—holding hands with—someone you used to know from the sixties?”

 

_Will you let the morning come soon_  
Or will you leave me lying here  
In your favourite darkness  
Your favourite half-light

 

Sandy looks into his eyes. “Laugh if you want, but believe me, after you I’ve never wanted anyone else. I have loved you and missed you every day for these twenty-five years. I’m hopeless, I know. But the only person who might end up getting angry about me having this conversation right now is Tooth.”

Kozzy lifts Sandy’s hand and presses it to his cheek. “That seems awfully familiar, somehow.”

 

_Don't waste your energy_  
Making apologies  
Get right with me

 

“I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long,” he continues. “I want to stay this time. Nothing can make me leave this time. If…if you’ll have me.”

Sandy trails his hand lightly down Kozzy’s jaw. _I will have you every which way you can think and then some_. “I’d like it if we could pick up where we left off.”

Kozzy closes his eyes. “After all this time…after all we’ve been through…we know there’s no utopia anywhere now, Sandy. I still love you…but we’re different now. Aren’t we? We know we didn’t win.”

“I think we won this moment,” Sandy says, picking up one of Kozzy’s hands and kissing the knuckles.

 

_Open your sensitive mouth_  
Hold out your delicate hands  
With such a sensitive mouth  
I'm easy to see through  
When I come up  
When I rush  
I rush for you

 

“And,” Sandy says with another familiar smile, one that calls a blush to Kozzy’s face, “when I say ‘pick up where we left off’, I’m kind of referring to that moment right before you got in the taxi to the airport.”

 

_I'm shying from the light_  
I always loved the night  
And now you offer me eternal darkness

 

Kozzy intertwines their fingers. “I was prepared to be sent away, even after begging for forgiveness. I hurt you, Sandy.”

“Now I understand that it was your _family_ that hurt me. You never meant to. You’ve justified me always wanting you back. And so I’m going to take you back.” He begins to massage Kozzy’s hand with both of his own, knowing that he’s surprisingly strong now, thanks to his years of work as a therapist. _But_ , he thinks, _this is not going to be one of my more professional evenings_. He looks up again, his expression schooled to a calm innocence that he knows is only going to agitate Kozzy more. “My house isn’t very far from here. And I’d like to think you had something like this in mind when you agreed to leave your car at the horse rescue.”

“Y-yes Sandy. But stop that, or we’re going to have to sit here doing nothing for a while before I can leave with dignity.” He puts his free hand to his face. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to make me forget how long it’s been since I was a teenager.”

 

_I surrender all control_  
To the desire that consumes me whole   
Leads me by the hand to infinity   
Lies in wait at the heart of me 

 

Sandy lets go and finishes his cold coffee, looking as calm as anyone could ask. He hopes there are no mind readers in the coffee shop.

In a few minutes, the album finishes. “See Steve, wasn’t that a great? Now no one had to die. My readers and characters thank you.”

“Kim, come over here if you want to have a conversation with me. Otherwise you’ll just annoy people. Anyway, _your_ characters? If this is the same story you were telling me about yesterday, you can’t claim those characters are yours—”

This conversation is the last thing Kozzy and Sandy hear as they leave the Alternate Universe.

 

***

 

            Kozzy wants to admire the paintings on the walls of Sandy’s house, really he does, but it’s hard to focus on things like that when Sandy has him pressed against the wall, pausing in his kisses only to say something like “you were worried about smelling like horses earlier so why don’t we go take a shower”.

            Getting there is all confusion, both of them half-shy but desperate, torn between wanting to prolong these moments and lay hands on each other as soon as possible. Sandy unbuttons Kozzy’s shirt carefully, a lingering kiss for every button. When he pulls off the undershirt Kozzy’s wearing he can hear it rip. Kozzy is kinder with Sandy’s sweater, but his belt forces him to slow down. “Fuck,” he mutters, “can’t even remember how to take off another person’s—” but there is no place for frustration here and Sandy distracts him by nipping and sucking at his neck.

 

            They stand facing each other under the warm spray of water from the showerhead. The steady flow of water seems to have calmed them, but as they each slowly caress the other’s body, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that this pause reflects an indecision regarding what to do first. “Sandy,” Kozzy whispers, trailing his fingers lightly down his sides, “You’re still all peaches and cream.”

            Sandy laughs a little, twining his arms around Kozzy’s waist and pulling him close. “And you’re still a slender reed. Though,” he pauses to kiss each pectoral. “I think you did come back with some new muscles—all very tense,” he adds, sliding his hands up Kozzy’s back, gently kneading. “But I hope they’ll come in handy all the same.”

            “Mmmhmm.” Pressed close like this, their erections rub against each other with each little movement, and in part Kozzy thinks there’s no reason for them not to rut against each other like horny teenagers right now, saving more coherent lovemaking for a little later. But for Sandy he has a much better idea.

            He tilts up Sandy’s face to kiss him on the mouth, the taste familiar and yet strange after all this time, and oh so maddening. Reluctantly, he lets go, to begin leaving a trail of kisses down Sandy’s jaw, neck, chest, and belly.

            “Kozzy,” Sandy says, running his fingers through his hair as he lowers himself to his knees to finish the trail.

            Kozzy looks up at him, smiling. _This is not rebellion. This is not a phase. This is love_. He continues to look at Sandy as he leans forward and licks his cock from base to tip—he’s missed the way Sandy bites his lip at moments like these, how he leans his head back and sighs. But there’s more to do than stare at Sandy, and he turns his full attention back to Sandy’s cock, slowly caressing the head with his tongue before beginning to draw his length into his mouth.

            Sandy wishes he had something to hang on to as Kozzy begins to suck in earnest, his head bobbing back and forth and the sight of his hollowed cheeks and just the overwhelming sensation of Kozzy, Kozzy, Kozzy, Kozzy’s warm wet mouth and his hands slippery in the warm water tracing patterns on the insides of his thighs and stroking the base of his shaft and oh this is just perfect this is what he’s wanted for so long. “Kozzy yes Kozzy just like that yes oh.” Nonsense spills from his mouth and in a few minutes he is spilling into Kozzy’s mouth. Kozzy swallows around him as he comes and through the aftershocks, then settles back on his heels, licking his lips and smirking up at Sandy.

            “And here I was thinking that I was out of practice,” Kozzy says.

            Sandy lets out a breathless little laugh. “You are—but I really missed you! Anyway,” he says, kneeling down in the tub next to Kozzy and planting a kiss on his now-annoyed expression, “do you really think I’ll be much better? Or that you’ll last any longer?”

            “Yes, and n-no,” Kozzy stutters as Sandy begins to draw his hands over Kozzy’s erection in firm, steady strokes.

            “Hmmm.” Sandy continues to stroke as he kisses Kozzy slowly, lazily. He breaks the kiss to murmur in Kozzy’s ear. “When I first saw you this afternoon I thought the gray in your hair was incredibly sexy. Didn’t know I had a thing for older men, but I never saw any older men that were you before.” He plants a brief kiss on Kozzy’s earlobe. “Can I call you ‘sir’ sometimes?” Kozzy glances at Sandy’s heavy-lidded eyes and mischievous grin in disbelief before coming with a moan across his stomach and Sandy’s hands. “Guess I can,” Sandy says quietly, still smiling, as he pulls Kozzy to his feet so they can both get clean in the warm flow of water.

 

            Later, Sandy tries to make dinner for both of them, but discovers that it’s very difficult to do such a thing when a tall handsome man is nibbling on your ear and telling you all the very filthy things he’d like to do to you. Instead, they have a simple repast of bread and honey as they watch the sunset.

            “This is really good,” Kozzy says contentedly.

            “The sunset, the food, being together again?”

            “All of it. But at the moment I said it I was thinking of the bread.”

            “Thanks—I made it myself. The honey is from the farmer’s market North sells homebrew at every weekend. He buys too much because he has a crush on the beekeeper, so he yesterday he gave me a jar.”

            “Makes perfect sense.”

            “Do you want to see everyone again?”

            “Of course…I missed them too. But not right away, Sandy. I just want it to be us for a while. You’ve got to help me become Kozzy again.”

            “It might be difficult. I’m not made of golden light like I was before.”

            “Yes you are. I don’t need drugs to show me that.”

            Sandy gets up and steps behind Kozzy, grasping his shoulder muscles. “You’re still very tense, you know. Would you like me to demonstrate some highly unethical behavior?”

            Kozzy leans his head back to look at Sandy. “That’s my favorite kind.”

 

            There’s no massage table at his house, so Sandy improvises with his ordinary bed and some pillows to prop up Kozzy’s face so he can breathe while lying facedown. Sandy puts on a tape of soft music and goes to the linen closet to get a few items.

            “What have you got there?” Kozzy asks, propping himself up on his elbows. He’s nude, under a thick, warm blanket.

            Sandy smiles. “Don’t get all excited just yet. These are mostly just sample sizes of the ordinary massage oils we use at the spa. The company that makes them sends out these gift baskets sometimes to businesses that buy their products, usually when they want to sell something new.”

            “Mostly?”

            Sandy’s smile gets wider. “Sometimes the things they want to promote aren’t really what we can sell at the cosmetics counter. But don’t look at me like that. You need an actual, real massage…”

            Kozzy sighs and sets his face between the pillows. “Fine.”

            “…first.”

 

            For the better part of an hour, Sandy works at the kinks and tension knots in Kozzy’s back, neck, and shoulders. And though Sandy knows what he’s doing, he’s often tempted to just stop halfway through as Kozzy makes, little, softly voiced sighs. “Are you deliberately trying to distract me?” he asks eventually.

            “I don’t know,” Kozzy replies. “I feel good though…too good…I never thought your hands all over me would make me feel like I was ready to fall asleep, though.”

            Sandy leans over and lightly kisses the back of his neck. “Turn over. I’m going to solve that problem.”

            He flips the blanket off him as he does so, and his expression is one of surprise when Sandy covers him up again. “I’m not done with the massage yet. Arms and hands are usually included.”

            “Sandy…”

            “Shh…” he places his hands around Kozzy’s bicep and continues.

 

            He saves Kozzy’s hands for last. These hands he loves, long-fingered, bony, elegant—Sandy presses his fingers into the spaces between the joints and knows it won’t be too long before this massage changes into something else. He casts a glance toward the telltale bulge in the blanket covering Kozzy. “When’d you get such a thing for hands, Kozzy?”

            Kozzy laughs a little, eyes closed. “As far as I can tell it started today when you began seducing me in a coffee shop.”

            “Hmmmm.” Sandy takes Kozzy’s index and middle fingers into his mouth and slowly licks his way up their length.

            Kozzy’s eyes fly open. “I assume this is where the unethical behavior begins?”

            Placing Kozzy’s hand against his bare chest, Sandy says, “Technically it was all unethical since I was half-naked the whole time. But you’re right,” he kisses Kozzy’s fingertips. “to think that finger-sucking is a totally unapproved behavior.”

            “I approve of it.”

            “Would you also approve of me getting all the way naked and joining you on the table—bed?”

            “I’ve been trying to approve of that for an hour and a half!”

            Sandy grins cheekily. “Oh, good.” He turns away for a moment and hands Kozzy a few smallish bottles. “Mind looking through these and picking which one you think would be best?”

            “All right…but for who?”

            “I doubt that the results are going to be that asymmetrical with any of them.” Sandy tosses his pants to the floor and climbs onto the bed and under the blanket with Kozzy, nuzzling against his neck. “But to answer the question you didn’t ask…I want you in me tonight. I want to feel every inch of you I have missed for so long, and I want you to make good on all the promises you made while you were distracting me in the kitchen. I waaant…”

            Sandy’s pretty sure that Kozzy just picks one at random, but how could that matter as soon enough all his attention is drawn to Kozzy’s long fingers in an entirely different way.

 

10/2/93

 

            _It really is wonderful to get what you want_ , Sandy thinks, waking up wrapped in Kozzy’s arms. _To wake up, and have Kozzy be there_. He lets himself drift back to sleep just so he can wake up to Kozzy again. When he does wake again, it’s to Kozzy planting a light kiss on his lips. He keeps his eyes closed. “Are you pretending to be asleep to get me to add tongue?” Kozzy asks.

            “You mean you weren’t going to anyway?” Sandy does open his eyes now. He reaches a hand out to stroke Kozzy’s back. “I didn’t scratch you too badly last night, did I? I mean…you were making it very difficult to keep from doing so.”

            “You tried,” Kozzy laughs softly, “very flattering, but I’m glad you keep your nails short.” He sighs. “I almost can’t believe this is really happening. Yesterday morning I didn’t know if I would ever see you again, and now you’re here, with me. Or I’m here with you.”

            “From now on,” Sandy says, intertwining their fingers.

            “From now on,” Kozzy agrees.

 

            The phone rings later in the morning, and Sandy can spare just about one, fragmentary thought to regret keeping a handset on his bedside table.

            He is buried deep in Kozzy, who is above him, matching him thrust for thrust with the most beautiful blissed-out expressions on his face and the most lovely moans issuing from his lips.

            As the phone rings, though, Kozzy suddenly stops. “What?” Sandy gasps, as Kozzy grins wickedly.

            “Should I answer it?”

            “Of course not!” He bucks his hips upward again.

            “Mhmhm! But what if it’s an emergency?” Kozzy asks, still grinning, as he reaches out a long arm and picks up the phone.

            “You’re unbelievable,” Sandy says, gripping Kozzy’s hips. He’s determined that Kozzy should not be able to give a coherent answer on the phone.

            It still doesn’t seem like a bad plan when he hears Tooth’s voice sounding tinnily from the phone. “Hi Sandy, it’s Tooth. Look, Jack and I were talking about the whole Kozzy-maybe-being-at-the-rescue thing, and we think you should wait to—”

            “Hello Tooth. You have—ahahh—reached the phone of—mmm—Sandy Somnia. He can’t come to the phone right now, as he is—unh—very—huhhmm—very busy.”

            “Hang up, for the love of—” Sandy throws his head back as Kozzy clenches around him. When he can focus again, Kozzy has indeed, hung up the phone. He leans down to kiss Sandy and shows every indication of being willing to continue just as energetically as before.

 

***

 

            Jack walks into the kitchen to see Tooth holding the phone with a bemused expression on her face. “A free line? Strange, I know, but Tasha is still asleep.” He kisses her on the cheek. “You call Sandy yet?”

            “Well, I called Sandy’s house—Jack, I think it _was_ Kozzy at the horse rescue.”

            “Yes? Are you going to tell me why?”

            Tooth hangs up the phone and puts a hand half over her face. “I think it was Kozzy because I think Kozzy was the one who answered the phone just now. He said Sandy was busy and—” she shakes her head and laughs a little “—I believe he was telling the exact truth.”

            Jack smiles and takes Tooth’s hands. “Would I be right in guessing that the conversation recalled some of the trials of North’s thin walls?”

            “An accurate guess, but—Jack, this isn’t something to simply smile at. This is a terrible idea.”

            “I know I would have the same terrible idea if I had been separated from you for so long.”

            “Jack…no. We’d have moved on. And for one thing at least, I’d have stretch marks to explain. Speaking of which, where is Resa?”

            “Watching cartoons. You know, I think those will hold her attention for a while.”

            “We can’t—the TV, really?”

            “You know what else I think?”

            “What?”

            “I think that Sandy and Kozzy’s idea on how to spend a Saturday morning is a good one.”

            Tooth sighs. “If you think Resa will be safe…”

            “It’s Batman…of course she’ll be safe.” He pulls Tooth into an embrace.

 

10/3/93

 

            The Alternate Universe is rather crowded this evening, much to Bunny’s surprise. People he hasn’t seen in years are thick on the ground, and so are many who he thinks he might have met once, if at all. Some of them bring posters from the summers of ’67 or ’68. They were collecting these? He signs them without hesitation, though inwardly he thinks it’s all very surreal. At least North, Tooth, and Jack are here to offer some form of familiarity, to remind him that those days did happen, that these posters weren’t meant to end up in frames. He wonders where Sandy is, though.

 

            Sandy and Kozzy had agreed that by showing up slightly after the scheduled opening time would allow them to blend in more easily, and hopefully not cause as much of a stir among their friends. _Sandy’s friends_ , Kozzy thinks. _Sandy’s friends now, and I hope, I hope, my friends again_.

            At first, when they enter the coffee shop, their assumption seems to be correct. They mingle among the crowd, looking at the art—privately, Sandy thinks that Bunny’s works are the best there.

            In a minute or two, though, they find themselves nearing the group containing North and the others. Kozzy reaches out to find Sandy’s hand and holds it tightly. He turns to say something to Sandy, but before he can form the words, a young girl with dark hair standing next to Tooth turns around and catches sight of them.

            “Sandy!”

            “Hi Tasha,” Sandy says, keeping hold of Kozzy’s hand.

            She looks up to Kozzy, glances at their hands, and back to Sandy. “Is that—him?”

            Sandy nods. And maybe he should be treating this moment with some seriousness, and maybe he should be offering some explanation to everyone, but all he can do is let a wide smile bloom across his face. He looks around at his friends, who have all turned to face him and Kozzy now, their expressions varying combinations of shock and wariness—except for Maria, who doesn’t know the whole story.

            “Hi guys—sorry we’re late.”

            “Late? Are you sure you didn’t time-travel?” Bunny says, getting up from where he’s been sitting and signing posters. “How…?”

            A flurry of questions follow Bunny’s, some directed at Sandy, some directed at Kozzy. The one that stops them, though, comes from Resa, who had been shyly standing beside Tooth. “Why did you tell me the horses were going to eat me?”

            Kozzy looks at her in surprise, then at Sandy. “You found me because of Tooth’s daughter? Why didn’t you say so?”

            “We had other things to talk about—why don’t you answer Resa’s question?”

            “Oh, yes.” He squats down on his heels so he can face her. “Your parents probably told you that horses don’t eat little girls. And that’s true. But sometimes they bite. At the rescue I’m in charge of all the mean horses. So I told you that to keep you away from them.”

            “But you were scary,” Resa says.

            “Well, I didn’t have time to talk to you like I’m doing now. And is there anything other than being scared that would have kept you away from the horses?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Maybe a ten-foot brick wall,” Jack interjects.

            “And I’ll tell you something else, Resa, is it? Once, a long time ago, a horse got hurt because the people around it didn’t know it was mean and that only I was supposed to take care of it. So when I was scaring you, I was just as scared myself, because I didn’t want the horses to get hurt.”

            Resa frowns thoughtfully. “O-kay.”

            Kozzy stands up. Jack, at least, seems to be looking on him more sympathetically now. “I’m afraid I’ve lost track of all your other questions,” he says, glancing around.

            “I think I can summarize them,” says Bunny. “Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why didn’t you tell Sandy anything?”

            “Bunny, he’s explained everything to me. I don’t think it’s really something to chat about in a crowd.” He looks up at Kozzy, who nods. “Some terrible things were done, and since they can’t be reversed, I want to be able to move forward. And I still want Kozzy with me.”

            “It will be long time waiting for next dinner visit to hear whole story,” North says. “But you were not kept in box whole time—” he sees Kozzy press his lips together “—were you? What have you been up to?”

            “For the past few years I’ve been working with horses. Like at the rescue stable. I help retrain the difficult ones. I’ve gotten a lot better at having the horses end up willing to listen to others and not just me.”

            “But you’ve been gone a lot longer than a few years,” Tooth says, her arms folded.

            Kozzy sighs. “I know. Believe me Tooth, I _know_. For most of that time…I was in my family’s world. I learned how to play games with money, and land, and people. Possibly the only thing I can specifically point to and say that I did was the time I was a producer and also creative consultant for a series of government PSAs.”

            “Like television ads? Which ones were yours?” Jack asks.

            Kozzy nods. “I don’t know how many of you might remember these, they only aired for a few days, but they were anti-heroin spots. Casually, we referred to it as the ‘needlebug’ campaign—which was a literal reference to the imagery in the ads.”

            “I remember, all right,” Jack says. “ _That_ was what they were for?”

            “Kozzy, those ads gave me nightmares,” Sandy says.

            “Sorry—I guess they gave a lot of people nightmares—that’s why the ads were pulled. I was discouraged from offering design advice after that.”

            “Don’t be sorry.” Sandy smiles up at him. “It takes skill to make something that freaky.”

            “So you’ve been in that world.” Tooth isn’t one to get sidetracked. “How can we know it hasn’t changed you? We don’t know who you are anymore. An entire lifetime has passed since you left. Sandy’s happy to welcome you back but,” she turns to Sandy, “I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.”

            Sandy speaks first. “Tooth, I appreciate your concern, really I do, but I’m willing to take a chance on Kozzy. You know I never moved on. It’s just…I dealt with the pain of losing Kozzy once. Now I’ve found him again. It’s worth at _least_ a try. And…he’s still Kozzy. No matter how long it’s been. I know him better now than I did when I fell in love with him.”

            Though none of them are going to say it out loud, Kozzy’s smile at Sandy is bringing up many memories for all of them. After a few moments, Kozzy answers Tooth as well. “Before I came to San Francisco, I was Kosmotis to my family, Pitchiner to my teachers, and Pitch to my schoolmates. Before I met Sandy, I tried to be Kosmotis Black. To Stella and the Boston set I was Koz. For the past few years I’ve been Kosmo. But when I was with Sandy—in North’s house—with all of you—I was Kozzy. And now that I’m with Sandy again, I’m Kozzy again. It’s who I really am, and it’s who Sandy lets me be.

            “Am I a different person? Maybe. Maybe Sandy is too. But he’s also still the Sandy I met in the Haight. And I still love him. I was afraid we had changed, but…we haven’t. Not in the ways that are important. And, well—Tooth. Iceman. Bunny. North. Doesn’t the same heart beat in all of you right now that was beating twenty-five years ago? Without mirrors, without all the memories, how would we know we were different?

            “Maybe it’s a bit frightening. When I say, and I do say, that I will never leave again, how can you believe that I won’t vanish again? But it’s true. Because I am Kozzy again, and these past two mornings have been the first time in twenty-five years I’ve remembered having good dreams and still being happy to wake up.”

            Sandy embraces him, feeling like his face is going to break from smiling.

            Bunny is the first to respond. “You know, for me at least, Kozzy’s right. I don’t feel that different. It’s why I was feeling so weird about this art show. I’m still a rogue poster artist.”

            “Well,” says North, “I know I do not change. Not in my center. I believe what Kozzy says. I believe he will stay.”

            “Man, ‘Iceman’,” says Jack, shaking his head.  “I didn’t let them call me that in the army. And I introduce myself to people as Jack, now. But I am still Iceman. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

            Tooth sighs. “You know, they don’t make that fabric in that color anymore. To get the coat to fit you now I’d have to add a few small panels. I’m thinking…plain black?”

            “That sounds great.”

 

            And Sandy leans up to kiss Kozzy on the cheek, and all is well as the fine autumn night settles around the warm golden glow of the Alternate Universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for not giving Maria any lines! And I imagine Tasha and Resa were really bored during that last conversation. Maybe they went to go get more punch.
> 
> Anyway, happy belated Valentine's Day!


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5/18/2004-12/24/2004
> 
> There's a line that Peter Cook says in "The Princess Bride" that would be relevant to explain this chapter, but I want you to be surprised.
> 
> But let's just say there's a good reason that I had to take this story to 2004 and that Kozzy goes back to Massachusetts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a brain fart about the ages of Jamie and Pippa’s kids. The previous chapter has been corrected, but if you’re wondering where Michael went, he just wasn’t born yet. If that is the only timeline mistake I made I will be supremely happy.

“No Resa, DON’T!”

            Sandy glances up from his book to see Kozzy following Resa on Phobetor. Resa is ahead of him, on Onyx, who is ordinarily bomb-proof now, but still has a tendency towards mischief.

            Resa just laughs and urges Onyx forward toward the fence separating the horse pasture from the yard. She doesn’t slow down as she nears it, and Sandy watches in amazement as they jump clear over. “Whoooohoooo! Go Onyx!” Resa throws her hands in the air and rides around the house before stopping in front of Sandy. “Wasn’t that awesome? I wish we could have gotten a picture.”

            “I’m impressed,” says Sandy, “but I think Kozzy has a different opinion.”

            “Theresa Frost.” Kozzy looks grim from his seat on Phobetor. “You have just taught Onyx that it is possible for her to jump over the border fence. I’ve half a mind to make you spend your summer vacation installing a new, higher one. Because now we’re going to need it.”

            “Aw, come on!” Resa slumps forward on Onyx’s neck. “It was so cool though! And way more impressive than anything else I’ve done lately.”

            “I guess getting your license doesn’t count?” Sandy sets his book down and goes over to carefully pat Onyx’s nose.

            “Any loser can get a license. But seriously, we were _flying_. Admit it Kozzy, admit it!”

            “All right, all right. As you took an action that is going to result in a series of huge inconveniences for me and Sandy, your form was entirely perfect.”

            “Woooow, I’m going to write that down in my journal. Oh, that reminds me, are you going to bring Onyx for the stairs picture this Christmas?”

            “I don’t think she’d appreciate the rest of the party,” Sandy says, laughing.

            “If we brought Onyx we’d have to bring Phobetor, Erebus, and Mab.” Kozzy says this like it should be obvious. “I’m not going to play favorites.”

            “That’s because your favorites are already here,” Sandy reminds him. “You like collecting the ones either Katherine or Jane refer to as ‘demonic’. Anyway, I don’t think we need a new fence. If Onyx escapes, I’m pretty sure she’ll just wander around looking into the windows of the house until she finds you. Or destroy the yard. But she won’t run away.”

            “I suppose I could bribe her to not escape…” at the word ‘bribe’, Onyx turns her head towards Kozzy. “You see that! She recognizes when I say ‘bribe’. You are an evil genius, aren’t you, Nyxie?” he says fondly. “Anyway, I think that’s enough riding for today.  You do still have homework, don’t you?”

            “Why’d you have to remind me of that? Sending me from horses to irregular verbs!”

            “I thought you said you wanted to be able to read Borges in the original,” Sandy says, opening the gate to the pasture.

            “At this rate I’ll be eighty-seven before I manage that.” Resa and Onyx reenter the pasture and follow Kozzy and Phobetor back to the stable.

            While waiting for them to come back, Sandy looks around at the house, the yard, the fields. They’ve been here ten years now and still Sandy is often struck with wonder that this place is theirs. His and Kozzy’s. The little sign he painted when they moved in, naming the house “Dreamland”, has never seemed ridiculous or untrue.

            He remembers his disbelief when Kozzy put forth the idea that they could build a new house on a big piece of land, with room for several horses, a big garden, an outdoor kiln—but it had turned out that Kozzy had had a healthy trust fund all along that he was waiting to use until he found “the most un-Pitchiner thing” he could do with it. Apparently that meant building a paradise for his lover and several misbehaved horses. It also means that Kozzy’s a volunteer instead of an employee at the rescue now, and Sandy only works at the spa three days a week. Well, and when customers he’s known for a while ask him to make appointments as personal favors. And when any of his employees needs to take a day off unexpectedly. And sometimes when he doesn’t feel like working on any of his art projects during the day. Kozzy’s teased him about being a workaholic, but a gesture towards their stables ended that. He just likes what he does.

            To occupy his time while he waits, Sandy goes inside to fix some tea for Kozzy and himself. As the water heats, he wanders through the house. The walls are crowded with art—paintings of his and Kozzy’s, with some of Bunny’s posters and Tooth and Jack’s photographs interspersed among them. Most of the photos are on one wall, though, in the living room. Sandy’s copy of the original stairs picture has the central place, alongside the most recent stairs picture. _Amazing_ , Sandy thinks as he looks at the two. Eight people in the original and twenty in the most recent. _No way we could fit a horse on those steps now_.

            The kettle clicks off and Resa and Kozzy come into the house.

 

            After saying farewell to Resa, Kozzy and Sandy drink their tea in comfortable silence. Sandy leans his head on Kozzy’s shoulder when he’s finished, and Kozzy automatically reaches his arm out to wrap around Sandy’s shoulders. Sandy wonders if after eleven years they’re supposed to get over being able to do simple things like this, but he hasn’t, and he doesn’t think Kozzy has either. Such simple things—yet each embrace erases the decades alone all over again.

            “Sandy,” Kozzy says, then pauses for a bit. “I know I kind of failed to come up with an appropriate way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of when we found each other—”

            “Could have fooled me. Anyway, that was six months ago.” Sandy leans in closer.

            Kozzy leans down to kiss him on the forehead. “While I don’t deny that I enjoyed staying in that evening, it wasn’t my intent to be blindsided by that particular mead North gave us…”

            “Kozzy, the bottle was full of the blossoms of the hybrid morning glories he’s been growing. The ones he calls moonblooms. You really didn’t realize what was going to happen?”

            “I thought the morning glory thing was an urban legend. I’m glad it wasn’t, but anyway, what I’m trying to do is ask you if you want to go out for dinner this evening. And please say yes because I have reservations to Balance.”

            “As long as you didn’t have to murder anyone to get those reservations! Kozzy, I’ve wanted to go there for ages. Yes, let’s go. Do we need to get changed now, or, well, when are they for?”

            “We need to leave the house in about an hour and a half,” Kozzy says, running his fingers through Sandy’s hair.

            “Oh, I see.” Sandy sits up and turns so he can kiss Kozzy on the mouth.

 

***

 

            “So I know that you don’t watch the news very often,” Kozzy says as they sip their wine between courses.

            “I get all the local news from Gaby. Anyway, you know, since 2000…”

            “Yes. Well. All right. This is going to go a bit awkwardly. Anyway, you also know that I’ve said there would never be any reason that would ever compel me to go back to Massachusetts. Well, um, actually, it turns out there is a pretty compelling reason now. And, technically, I still have residence in that state…”

            Sandy looks at him worriedly. “This doesn’t have anything to do with your family, does it?”

            “Not as far as I know. No, don’t look at me like that. I never know what my family’s involved in at this level. Change the ‘not as far as I know’ to a plain ‘no’. Oh, this is all coming out wrong. What I’m trying to say is,” he says as he reaches into the inside pocket of his sport coat and takes out something small enough to conceal in his fist, “since it is now legal and therefore possible in Massachusetts,” he opens his hand to reveal a plain gold ring, “Sandy Somnia, will you marry me?”

            Sandy gasps and brings one hand to his mouth. He reaches out for one of Kozzy’s hands with his other hand, and nods for several moments before composing himself enough to say, “Yes, yes Kozzy yes. Oh—I—I never thought—or I thought—” he brings his other hand down to hold Kozzy’s free one, and Kozzy gently moves his hands so that he can place the ring on Sandy’s finger. “I thought we already had everything, but now—”

            “And I want to do this soon,” Kozzy says, and Sandy nods “so I don’t know if we’re going to have a lot of guests, and I don’t know if we’ll be sending out a lot of invitations. But for the ones we do send out…I want to back-date them to March 25, 1967.”

            “Kozzy, Kozzy—you are going to make me cry in this restaurant!”

            “No Sandy,” Kozzy says, smiling. “That’s the whole point of this—my showing to the whole world that I’m never going to make you cry again.”

 

6/3/2004

 

            When Kozzy said soon, he _meant_ soon. It’s just a little over two weeks since he proposed, and here they are, standing before a rather bored-looking judge. Sandy wants to get him to share in their excitement somehow, but it would take too long to explain. Anyway, there are a lot more people waiting their turns—the thought of all their lives and stories, maybe like his and Kozzy’s, maybe drastically different, all leading up to a day like this, a ‘Finally!’ day, threatens to overwhelm him for a moment. To ground himself, he focuses on Kozzy, who is, of course, looking back at him.

             They are both wearing black pants and white dress shirts today, but over those ordinary clothes, they each wear the coats that Tooth made for them (and altered and repaired when they found each other) for that first picture on the steps in front of North’s house. Instead of ties, Kozzy is wearing the golden scarf that was Sandy’s first real birthday present to him, and Sandy is wearing a similar black, blue, and purple one that Kozzy dyed for him soon after they were reunited. Jack smiles at them from where he’s sitting next to Tasha, Resa, and North. They were the only ones able to fly out to Massachusetts on such short notice, and Tooth has tasked him with taking lots of pictures. He thinks they’ll turn out well—the contrast of black and gold looks good on both of them.

            “Sign please.” He hears the judge say, and then “You may kiss the groom.”

            Jack gets one good picture of that moment, but as he takes a few more suddenly the view is interrupted by his daughters invading the bottom of the frame with defiant expressions on their faces and their middle fingers raised.

            “What are you _doing_?” He hisses at them.

            “No! Don’t delete that picture!” Tasha pleads. “Can you see us and them kissing at the same time? Let me see the camera.” Jack hands it to her. “Yes! It worked! Perfect!”

            “So why did you do that?”

            “I just so happened to find the official contact address of the benefactor of the Pitchiner Rehabilitation Facility the other day. Now, don’t you think Kozzy’s relatives should know about this?”

            “No!” says Jack.

            “Well I do. After all Orion Pitchiner is very old by now. He ought to see his nephew’s been made an honest man.”

            “Where do you even get those expressions?”

            “Anyway, Dad, what Tasha’s trying to get at is that we’re going to send that picture to him. Maybe the shock will kill him. Maybe not.” Resa looks into the distance. “But we can always hope.”

            “Great, Resa, now we seem like psychos.”

            “No, you do. Dad, just to be clear, this was Tasha’s idea from the start.”

            “Girls! Do whatever you want with the picture. But don’t tell Sandy or Kozzy. I don’t think they’ll appreciate it.” They nod.

            They go over to join North in congratulating Sandy and Kozzy, and when their embraces are interrupted by the judge reminding them that they have to leave so the next marriage can take place, they all exit in a disorganized jumble of voices raised in happiness.

 

            “So, where are you two going to honeymoon?” North asks over dinner.

“Paris…” sighs Tasha.

“Vegas!” Resa suggests.

“Everything’s happened so fast, we haven’t really had time to plan anything,” Sandy says. “I mean, not out loud.”

“Do you have an idea then?” Whatever it is, Kozzy’s sure he’ll agree. After all, wherever they go, he’ll be with Sandy. His husband.

“Well, you said you worked your way across the country after the divorce, but I doubt you were really trying to enjoy the journey. So I thought we could rent a car while we’re here, buy some camping things—though I figure we could stay in hotels most of the time—and…see the mountains and red dirt. The Badlands, the Great Sand Dunes, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley—there are a lot of places I want us to see together. Places where we can see the stars at night. And if you’re very good, we can even stop to see Wall Drug.”

“What’s Wall Drug?” Kozzy asks, smiling.

“Well now you see we have to go.”

Kozzy kisses him lightly. “It sounds wonderful. I’m glad there was a reason for you making me take the horses over to the rescue for boarding before we left. Because I can already guess there’s no fixed return date.”

“Yeah, Gaby about died of shock when I told her.”

“We will miss you at weekly dinners until you return,” North says, “but sounds like wonderful trip.”

“I like it when I can give Kozzy good trips,” Sandy says, winking at Kozzy.

Tasha rolls her eyes. “Even after going to college you all are still the most unrepentant old hippies I have ever seen.”

“Thank you,” says Sandy, and North laughs.

“Hey, what about me and your mom?” Jack asks.

“You were included in ‘you all’, Dad, much as it disturbs me to admit it.”

“Anyway,” says Kozzy, “why should we be repentant? We had wonderful days then, and we still have wonderful days now. It wasn’t the end of the world then, and it’s the beginning of the world now.”

 

Some night in June, who knows?/2004

 

            “This place…it’s almost like another planet,” Kozzy says softly, tracing his hand slowly across Sandy’s chest. They are the only campers in this cul-de-sac on the winding road through White Sands, and they have not bothered with a tent—it gets cool here at night, but several thick blankets and unzipped sleeping bags will suffice.

            Sandy smiles as he watches the stars. “I assume you’re speaking from memory, since you’re not looking at the dunes now.”

            “How do you know? You’re looking at the sky.”

            “I know.” Sandy catches Kozzy’s hand in his own and turns to meet Kozzy’s eyes. “But even while looking at the sky, I was thinking about us.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah. I was thinking about other worlds, and if there were any people like us on any of them.”

            “And what did you conclude?”

            “I thought there were probably lots of them. Worlds where we’re immortal. Where we can fly. Worlds where I stop your family from taking you away. Worlds where you really are a centaur, and I’m a satyr. Worlds where I’m a prince and you’re my bodyguard. Worlds where you’re a mage king and I’m the magic student who idolizes you. An infinity of worlds.”

            “They sound wonderful,” Kozzy says, leaning his head on Sandy’s shoulder. “But if there are an infinite number of worlds, there might be some not so wonderful. Worlds where we are enemies. Worlds where we try to hurt each other. Worlds where I never get to hear your voice.”

            “Even in those worlds, it could all work out in the end. Because I would always love you.”

            Kozzy closes his eyes and sighs. “Are the other versions of us ever as happy as we are now?”

            “I hope so,” says Sandy, looking back up at the stars. “I want almost everyone to be as happy as we are now.”

            “Almost everyone?” Sandy can hear the smirk in Kozzy’s voice.

            “I meant what I said.”

            Kozzy laughs a little. “I don’t deserve you.”

            “I don’t know if anyone deserves what they get, or if anyone gets what they deserve. I stopped caring about deserving a long time ago. I think all we can do is hold on to what we have and try to get the things we’ve always dreamed of being able to hold on to.”

            “You know that can go really wrong.”

            “Well, I’m not saying it to everyone. I’m saying it to you. And it hasn’t gone wrong with us.”

            Kozzy kisses his shoulder and Sandy turns to face him, scooting down so that their faces are level. The smirk is back on Kozzy’s face. “You want me to make a comment about you envisioning yourself as a satyr, don’t you?”

            Sandy glances upwards and grins. “I may have a few ready responses if you decide to do so.”

            “I’ll bet you do. What if I decide to play dumb?”

            Sandy sighs exaggeratedly. “Then I have to either go the very clichéd route of letting my new husband know I am feeling rather chilled, or—” he kisses Kozzy briefly, letting only the lightest touch of his tongue graze Kozzy’s lips, “I dispense with words altogether.”

            “Have I ever told you that the longer I know you, the more impressed I am that you didn’t jump me as soon as my tripping self took off all my clothes and wandered around your bedroom?”

            “Yes. And I always tell you that that would have been wrong. You can guess though, what I was thinking, then.”

            “Can I? Then I think I will.” Kozzy leans forward to kiss Sandy, letting his tongue slide all the way into his mouth now. His hands glide across Sandy’s body, and he swings one gorgeous long leg over Sandy’s hip. _Remarkably good guessing_ , Sandy thinks as he lets his hands move to all the familiar places on Kozzy that can make him shiver—shudder— _just like that. It’s going to take more than a desert night to cool us down after this._

 

6/23/2004

 

            “We can send it from my old Hotmail account, I never use it for anything anymore.” Resa watches as Tasha saves the pictures from the wedding to their family computer.

            “What’s the password?” Tasha asks.

            “I can’t tell you!”

            “You just said you didn’t use the account anymore! Just tell me. I don’t think you have anything I want to spy on anyway.”

            “Fine. It’s iloverufio45. No! Stop smiling at me!” Resa shoves Tasha’s arm.

            “Oh noooo now I messed up typing it. I forgot what it was. You’ll have to say it again. And say it nice and loud, since I am so old and going deaf.”

            “Tasha!”

            “Okay, okay. Oh, hey, you do have some emails in this account. Hmmm. Someone favorited ‘Talia Takes Her Gloves Off’.”

            Resa gasps and tries to take control of the mouse. “Delete that!”

            “Why? Aren’t you proud of it? Someone liked it!”

            “Nooooo I wrote it when I was thirteen!”

            “But you didn’t delete it!”

            “I forgot about it! Why don’t you stop making fun of me and we can actually go through with _your_ plan.”

            “I’m not making fun of you. I think it’s cute.”

            “Ugh!”

            “Whatever. Okay, on with the plan. Should we include a note? I think we should include a note.”

            “Roses are red, Violets are blue, You took Kozzy from Sandy, So now, fuck you?”

            Tasha frowns thoughtfully. “Not exactly what I was thinking, but I like it.”

            In a few moments the email with the picture is sent.

            “So…why was Talia taking her gloves off?”

            “I swear Tasha, I will _never_ tell you as long as I live.”

 

***

 

            The secretary at the Pitchiner Rehabilitation Facility deletes an email from horsegrl854@hotmail.com. It’s got an attachment, sounds sort of like spam—“A Picture You May Be Interested In”—what kind of a subject is that?—and she certainly doesn’t have time to deal with a virus in the system today.

 

            Many years later, Orion Pitchiner dies peacefully in his sleep, at the age of ninety-seven. He has no regrets, and as he passes, he is surrounded by his loving family.

            If loving is the adjective you want to use.

 

12/24/2004

 

            “See Martha, this is why you can’t give North free honey. Now he thinks we need to drink all this mead _tonight_ , and then we’ll all have to stay here and there really isn’t room!”

            “He said you were going to stay here anyway, Sophie.”

            Sophie laughs. “Yes, but if we all get drunk, then there will be too many of us. We managed to live with eight people in this house once, but how many are we now?”

            “Twenty-one by some counts, twenty-two by others,” says Sara, who has been avoiding the mead in favor of hot chocolate.

            “Definitely twenty-two,” says Will (who, much to Sandy’s amusement upon meeting him, is also short and blond).

 

            “My mom…” says Maggie

            “My dad…” says Lauren.

            “Would never have done anything like that.”

            “They’re _way_ too boring to have hitchhiked cross-country on a whim.”

            “Seriously!” says Resa. “How do you think they met North and everybody?”

           

            “But Ben is just so quiet, I’m not sure what to do with him,” says Tom, chatting with North. He thinks he’s finally managed to get used to Sophie’s friends from the old days, but then…

            “You say he likes chemistry, yes? BEN! Come here. Michael, you too! Will show you how to amaze your friends.”

            “By doing what?” asks the surly eleven-year-old.

            “Are you a spy?” At nine years old, Michael is more easily impressed.

            “Ha! Spy? You think I could blend in?”

            “You talk like a movie spy.”

            “Like movie bad guy, da? But I am good guy. Now come, will show you demonstration. Only need things from kitchen and heat source.”

            Tom’s eyebrows shoot up. “I…hope you have safety glasses…”

 

            “I was never much one for team sports,” says Maria, leaning on Bunny as they sit on the old couch.

            “You work with teams of people every day,” Bunny points out.

            “That’s different. The stakes are higher. Sports are for honing the body and mind. Trying to get a ball into a net is a distraction from their purpose. My point though, Emily, is that if you want to find something different to do, I bet you could, even at school. Maybe wrestling. And don’t say you can’t do it because you’re a girl. If they don’t let you I’ll make them.”

            “Um…I guess I just wanted to vent about my soccer team a little…”

            “Hey, Em, don’t worry. I know Maria tends to come on strong at times, but I get it. I’m sure next season will be better.”

            “Huh! Coming on strong is how I keep my job and how I managed to snag you, so I will continue to do so.”

 

            “Why don’t you want to use the digital camera? I brought it.”

            “You can take pictures with it if you want, Jack, but I’m still going to use the Polaroid. We always forget to print out the digital pictures, and,” Tooth shrugs, “I like having physical memories. Like this!” She kisses Jack on the cheek and expertly points the Polaroid at them using only one hand.

            In a few moments the picture is clear.

            “Oh, I like this one! You look just as surprised as you did when I first told you I liked you.”

            Jack smiles. “We should stick it on the fridge to annoy Resa with.”

 

            “I mean, I’ve been at grad school for a semester now, and while I like all the people I’ve met there, I’m just not sure it’s for me.” Tasha presses the keys of the old piano softly enough that they don’t produce any sound.

            “Do whatever you think is right, Tasha,” says Pippa, “but know that you could turn out _exactly_ like Jamie.”

            “Hey!” Jamie shoots them a look from his seat on the floor.

            Pippa winks at him. “Love you.”

            Jamie turns back to Sandy and Kozzy, who are also sitting on the floor, their backs against the couch. “As I was saying, when we look back on our lives, what have we really accomplished? Did we manage to save the world? Did we even manage to change it? Here we are, in the middle of another interminable, badly-justified war…”

            “So what do you want to do instead of grad school? Your dream career.” Pippa asks Tasha.

            She sighs. “I want to drive around the country in a colorful bus, and teach people how to breathe, and move their bodies healthily, and let them play pretend. Maybe I could get other people to join me. We could be a theater troupe, I guess. Interactive theater and mindfulness. But it’s too late for that.”

            _Never too late_ , thinks Sandy, who has been doing his best to listen to both conversations. He glances up at Kozzy. “It would be a very un-Pitchiner project,” Kozzy says, showing that he’s been listening too.

            “…and we all ended up part of it. Hell, Sandy, you own your own business. Not a single one of us managed to find a way to exist outside of the capitalist hegemony. After a certain point, did we even stop to consider if we really wanted what we were being sold? I mean, Sandy, Kozzy, you got married! That’s so…normative. It wouldn’t surprise me if you had a white picket fence! When I think back to ’67—I mean, how did we all end up in this rags-to-riches, marriage plot narrative? Weren’t we going to be subversive? Weren’t we?”

            “You know, Jamie, there’s a reason I only visited your classes once,” says Pippa.

            “We need to ask these questions!”

            North steps over from where he’s been leaning against the wall. “Not on Christmas. Also, is simple answer. Could be better. Could be much worse. You are happy? Is good. Do what you need to stay that way. Do what you can to make others so. You are not happy? Have courage to do what you need to do to become so. Try not to think in generalities. Everything always looks bad in generalities.

            “Now, you want bowl or something? You seem stressed.”

            “Bowl of what?” asks Emily.

            “Nothing, Em. Really North?”

            North shrugs. “You were getting so troubled about being normal.”

            “Anyway, Jamie,” says Kozzy, “we certainly don’t have a white picket fence. Onyx would break it into toothpicks in five seconds.”

            “And I don’t know what to tell you,” says Sandy. “I don’t know if I ever really wanted to be subversive. I just wanted to be good to other people and love Kozzy. And I hope I’ve succeeded. As for marrying him…” Sandy reaches over to grasp Kozzy’s left hand with his own. He loves to see the two gold bands together like that. “I didn’t do it to make a point, and I wasn’t going to not do it to make a different point. I did it because I love him.” He laughs. “I’m certainly not trying to be some sort of grand model for anyone else. Kozzy and I aren’t groups. I’m Sandy. He’s Kozzy. I’m Kozzy’s.”

            “And I’m Sandy’s. And that’s all we need to be.” Kozzy lifts Sandy’s hand to his lips and lightly kisses his knuckles. “Love you.”

            “Love you.”

 

And they all lived happily ever after, because life was too short not to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I wrote this story, I suddenly started thinking, "isn't it problematic that Kozzy and Sandy's American Dream succeeds? Mustn't the American Dream ALWAYS fail in literature?" But then I realized I didn't give a fuck, and if the American Dream is going to succeed with anyone, why not the Sandman?
> 
> What else...if you are a writer and think I am referencing you in a way that means I love you, you are correct.
> 
> If you know the fandom Resa used to write for, you get a free order of spoo.
> 
> Anyway, phew, that was exhausting. I swear, the next thing I write is going to be a lot shorter.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> P.S. Wow, there are five generations of Pitchiners that figure in this story. Also I never told you Bunny's real name. And there are a lot of open spaces in this story. Oh well, I am done! I bequeath it all to you, my lovely readers.

**Author's Note:**

> Curiously enough, like my other fic, the title comes from William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell".


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